Fallacy
by Sarehptar
Summary: 100themes challenge, Theme 43: "Yes, yes: an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. But I keep telling you, I really think it would be worth it. I can grow new eyes."
1. You Could Have Said Anything

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**A Brief Introduction**

This project deserves something of an introduction, if it is to be completely understood. Originally the 100themes challenge was created on Deviant Art, where artists were expected to draw one hundred pictures—needless to say I decided to snatch those themes and use them as writing prompts.

"Fallacy" is a character-centric set of one-shots (some of which are connected), focused on Kharl, everyone's favorite hopeless villain. **Many** other characters appear in this collection, with the most common being Rath, Garfakcy, Lykouleon, and Kaistern. I will list warnings prior to most chapters, as shounen-ai, violence, and harsh language are likely occurrences.

Fallacy is sometimes connected to my other Dragon Knights fanfiction 'Cloaks', but knowledge of that story is not _vital_ to understanding these themes. (It is, however, encouraged:D) If you require any previous knowledge to understand a theme, I will provide it for you with the warnings. There will be no spoilers (not much left to spoil now anyway…), and I expect to update about once a week. …I believe that's all that needs to be said, so enjoy!

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**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

**Theme**: 1, Introduction  
**Characters**: Rath, Kharl, Lykouleon  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: Alternate Universe situation.  
**Title Provider**: Anything (Plain White T's)

_You Could Have Said Anything to Make Me Understand…_

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He moves once in his chair, palms pressing further into the garish yellow fabric. He can feel the muscles of his legs, tensing and coiling with each swing of his feet. He has been in this position a thousand times before, can't help but think that he'll be in it a million times more. Without lifting his eyes from his two-sizes-too-big jeans, he can see everything the small room has to offer.

There is a desk, one he has repeatedly scratched his name into when Lykouleon was not looking. It's old, older than him at least, and made of some dark brown wood that is he sure he _should_ know the name of, but does not. The walls all around are a sickly pale yellow color that reminds him of phlegm and other unmentionable things. Raseleane once scolded him sweetly for pointing that out, and then she said the color reminded her of sunshine. There are paintings on the wall, but they never interested him very much—they are portraits of people he has never met, does not look like, and does not want to know about. In one corner, there is a potted palm. He remembers asking how it had managed to survive so many years, only to have his illusions broken—it is made of silk.

Nothing in the room, he thinks, is in as good of condition as it should be. Foster Care centers are supposed to get government funding, aren't they? Nothing in the room looks new or clean, except for… He does not look up because if he looks at that new man, the stranger might be real. He does not want to believe it, not yet. If he starts to hope again, something might break inside him—he stops the thought with a wry chuckle that never leaves his lips. There is nothing left to break inside him.

"Rath, are you listening to me?" Lykouleon is seated behind that desk, and his green eyes are too soft, and his voice is too kind for the words that he is saying. Never once has Lykouleon raised his voice, Rath cannot help but remember. Never has Lykouleon bothered to correct his behavior. He does not care enough to.

"I wasn't listening." The dark-haired teen mutters into the knee he has pulled almost defensively to his chest. His muddy boot is grinding in the seat of the chair, but he leaves it there. Lykouleon won't say anything, he knows.

"Forgive him, please." Lykouleon murmurs to the stranger, with a voice that is half exasperation and half indulgence. "Rath is naturally—"

"Stubborn." It comes across that man's pale lips with a laugh behind it. Rath forces himself to keep his eyes down, watching the black and white strands of his hair with faked disinterest. He likes the sound of this new voice. No, he insists, he does not. Liking something would mean…

"Rath," There is some note in the blond man's voice that Rath has never heard before. He is afraid to call it sadness, because that might mean that the care-provider actually… "It would be appreciated if you would sit up and act like this is an important matter." But Lykouleon says it all with a smile that makes the words meaningless. He does not sit up. Lykouleon's smile falls but Rath does not notice. "This man is Kharl Stille." There is a rustle of fabric and Rath knows that Lykouleon is making some polite gesture. For a moment, the green-eyed man does not continue. But then his words are heavy and as shocking as frigid water.

"He's your father. And he's come back to get you, Rath." The dark-haired teenager cannot stop himself this time as his head jerks up. Beside Lykouleon, the stranger looks back at him with lilac eyes that are arresting. Suddenly the hideous paint, the fake plants, the flaking desk are unimportant. 

He says a million things, but he is silent. _Why did you… Why now… Who… How…_ His heart is beating like a caged bird inside his ribs, and it does not know if it should feel fury, fear, or joy. He tries to force the words across his tongue, through his stunned and parted lips, but all that can come free of him is one short breath. It seems to be enough.

"I've missed you." This man, his father, smiles. It is not a smile like Lykouleon's. It is warm and true and Rath can feel the emotion that drives it. _I've missed you_. Those words… Though he does not want to hope, he cannot help but believe them.

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	2. Never Free, Never Me

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar

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**Theme**: 2, Love  
**Characters**: Rath, Kharl  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: Volume nine, "Meeting on Emphaza" scene.  
**Title Provider**: The Unforgiven Two (Metallica)

_Never Free, Never Me, Because You're Unforgiven Too…

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_

He feels the cold before he feels the blade, and for a moment, everything inside him runs and cracks like melting ice. Everything seems suddenly overly clear, sharp and shadowed. Though it is not, he can almost see the glow of the Light Dragon sword where it has ripped through his white cloak and everything below it. Even the curve of Rath's clenched jaw is too vibrant—that face and that gaze look crueler than they really are. That must be it, a trick of the pain, because he does not, desperately does not want to believe that the coldness in those eyes is not part of his imagination.

For a moment, it seems as if he will be able to continue to stand, to function, but the ice melts fully until it is running, running from him like his conscious. The blade pulls free, the Light fades, the emptiness gasps where his heart used to be. Beneath him the grass is slick with dew and something that is darker, and it flashes black in the corners of his eyes as he tries, fails, continues to try to focus, to find the warmth behind the bloodied snow that Rath sees him with. He fists his hand into the younger man's shirt, just to say that he has touched him, just to say that for a moment they were connected.

"Why…" And he cannot hear his own words anymore, cannot feel his lips moving--but something in Rath changes, and for a moment, just a moment, he can see something soft in the boy's eyes. Blood blooms like crimson carnations over his cloak. Rath kneels beside him, knees soaking up the watery darkness and pressing into his father's side, just to say they have touched. Those scarlet eyes water like melting snow, confused and desperate for more words than they will ever get.

The Alchemist cannot help but think that even in pain, love can be infinitely sweet.


	3. Now We are On the Edge of Hell

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar

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**

**Theme**: 3, Light  
**Characters**: Kharl, Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: None  
**Title Provider**: Fake Wings (.Hack)

_Keep Your Eyes on Me, Now We are On the Edge of Hell…_

_

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Rose, White: Innocence, Purity, Secrecy, Silence. _

There is something wrong, inherently wrong about us. I have ignored it; I have hidden it under the millions of more pressing things, but at times like these, in the quiet and the peace of a fading day, it is hard to ignore. It is growing harder.

For once, he is silent, working steadily with a hand that is more skilled than he will admit, a hand that is more skilled than any child's should be—but that is it, isn't it? I cannot help but cringe. This tiny, breakable creature is no child. He is hardly a hundred years younger than me. Inside that fragile skull there is a mind as sharp and calculating as any scholar, as any demon. Inside those tiny hands, centuries of wisdom, of experience, of age, sit ready to be wielded as powerfully as any blade. He hisses in indignation as he spots another weed, and dives into the carefully trimmed bushes to end the offending life.

He rages at it, takes personal affront to its presence, as if by having let it grow even one leaf, he has failed somehow. Maybe he has—the rest of the world will not expect anything of a little boy; he must set standards for himself. For a moment, it seems terrible, seems cruel and unsettling, and my hands itch inside my immaculate white gloves. As if someone has taken my old eyes away, I can see him for a moment as a stranger might: he is unnatural, purely and unchangingly foreign. For that second, I can not help but wonder how I stand every day knowing that he is and he is not real. A baby, a child, a monster, a murderer? It is as if I have polluted something…

How can _he_ stand it? To wake everyday in a child's body and know that there are things he will never be able to do? How must it feel to look at every opponent and see them as so much bigger than he knows they are? How can his violent pride stand it—how can he not hate his own form every time he needs a stool to reach the cabinets? When he sits beside me, his feet don't touch the floor. When he has to leap to reach anything, it must sting like a reopened wound. And what do we all look like to him? Sinistra must seem cumbersomely giant when she curls up beside him, and he must lift his hand to pet her head.

He straightens suddenly, his normally browned skin darker today from dirt and sweat. He is bathed in the golden haze of the afternoon sun, and it makes his tiny form ethereal. His long hair, the black strands that never grow any longer, glint an orange-blue in the light, a color I have never seen before. Emerald eyes half shut against the glare, he turns to me and smiles—a child's smile, shining with simple happiness and innocence and a warmth that I could never hope to mimic.

"All finished Master Kharl!" His perpetually young voice chirps.

There is something inherently wrong with him, with me… But I want to ignore it a while longer.


	4. Once There was a Child's Dream

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 4, Dark  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath, Others?  
**Pairing**: There is a completely crack side-pairing, I'll give you a cookie if you figure it out.  
**Warnings**: "What in all the Seven Hells?" situation. Tolerance for trashed Biblical references is requested.  
**Need to Know Info**: Cain, Abel, and the story of murder  
**Title Provider**: Dark Chest of Wonders (Nightwish)

_Once There was a Child's Dream, the Age I Learned to Fly...

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_

_The child runs as fast as his feet can stand, tripping on the icy path but regaining his balance as only young boys can. His short lilac hair flies in the wind of his movement, getting into his eyes and clinging on his forehead like the reaching roots of a tree or the legs of a spider. He brushes it away with a hand that is familiar to the gesture, and with care, climbs the snowy steps that are almost too high for his small legs._

"_Father, father!" His voice is everything young and sweet, full of a light laughter that sounds like chimes. "Look what I found!" He leaps unbeckoned into his father's lap, smile falling only a little when the man tries to stifle a wracking cough._

"_What is it Abel?" He feels the rough warm hands close around him like a blanket, and he snuggles closer to his father's body, the body that is a wall to all the bad things of the world. It does not even take him a moment to hold his treasure high, watching it glint in the dimmed light of their home. A single, black feather dwarfs his tiny pale hand, and his father studies it quietly for a few moments as if it is the first time he is seeing something like it, as if his son has brought him a precious gem._

"_Where did you find it?" His father's voice is brimming curiosity and indulgence._

_"It fell from the sky!" Abel waves his hands to illustrate, as if words alone cannot express the beauty of the thing._

"_Did you see a bird?" The older man's smile is just a delicate curve of his lips, but the lilac-haired boy drinks it in as if he will never see it again._

"_No," he shakes his head solemnly, "There weren't any birds at all." _

"_Then it must be an angel's feather."_

"_An angel?!" The little boy squeaks in amazement, holding his feather all the tighter. His face falls after a moment, darkening unsurely. "But Father, angels have white feathers." The bigger man closes his hand around the feather too, and for a moment, he and Abel's entire world are silent._

"_Is a black bird any less a bird?" His father asks, "Is a black fish any less a fish? Is your brother any less your brother because his hair is black?"_

"_No." Abel turns the words over in his mind for a moment, and then the wisdom in them comes clear like water being filtered. "So, angels come in every color? Just like birds and fish and people." His father's head that has been resting on top of his nods gently. After a few seconds, like any child, he fails to contain himself and squirms free of the older man's hold, running off as quickly as he has come. Behind him, his father's green eyes are soft with love and happiness._

"_CAIN! CAIN!" He knows he is shouting, the very thing his older brother hates, and for once, he does not care. The porch is slippery with ice and water beneath his feet, and though he wants desperately to run, he has to wind his way carefully. At the end of the raised entrance way, his brother does not turn to help him._

"_What do you want?" The black-haired child mutters finally, when his smaller brother's indignant pinches can be ignored no longer._

"_I found something amazing!" Even though his voice is rampant with excitement, he whispers politely because he knows the only way to keep Cain's attention is following his rules, and the older boy does not like talking. _

"_Hn." Cain's red eyes return to polishing his dagger—it is his first, grudgingly given, and he knows he will treasure it forever. The golden dragon on its hilt stares up at him with eyes as stern as his own._

"_Wanna know what it is?" Abel asks, and then continues without waiting for his brother's reply, because he knows exactly what it would be. "It's an angel's feather!" He holds it as proudly as his brother holds his weapon._

"_No it's not." The retort is blunt and sure, and Cain has not even looked up to see Abel's precious new thing._

"_It is! Father said so!" The younger boy's hands wave in exasperation, almost trembling in indignation. _

"_You believe everything he says." There is some note of cruelty in his brother's voice, but there is some note of care there too, he will surely never admit. Abel hears it but knows enough to say nothing. Quickly, he falls beside his brother's bigger form and scoots inconspicuously over (while Cain is not watching) until their sides are touching. His brother jerks at the touch, but as if he realizes it is important, he does not move._

_For a long time, Abel sits without a word, watching his brother shine and clean the blade until it seems to cast a golden glow. The snow crunches thickly when he kicks his legs, just to keep them awake in the harsh cold. Even though he is well wrapped, he seems perpetually cold, and both of their breaths cloud mist-like in the frigid midday air._

"_Cain… Is father going to die soon?" He did not want to ask it, was terrified, but feels he must. There is something cold inside his father lately; there is some sluggishness of movement that is not right. There are days when his mother tells him he cannot see his father._

"_He's been sick a long time." Abel knows it is true because there are some things his brother does often, but lying is not one of them. He keeps secrets and he can be cruel, but he is honest in a way that cuts as sharply as his dagger surely will._

"_What…" He is afraid of the words but wants to hear them too. "What will happen when he's gone?" The thought still seems terribly wrong, and he fears that any moment something younger in him will cry that his father can't die, because fathers just _don't.

"_I'll inherit the land and carry on in his place."_

"_But Cain, I thought Father said I was going to inherit the fields." The black-haired boy stiffens, his hand on the hilt of the dagger tightens enough that his chilled-blue fingers turn white and red again. Abel knows he has said something wrong, but is too frightened and confused to apologize._

"_He didn't mean that. You shouldn't believe everything he says." That voice is sharp, and behind his white and black bangs, Cain's eyes are as hard as stone and flash with cruelty. Abel nods because he does not know what else to do, and he wants to see his brother smile again. It has been a long time since Cain has smiled for him._

"_What will it be like when you're the lord and we're both big?" As if those words have smoothed over everything before them, the black-haired boy drops an obliging hand onto his brother's head, ruffling the feathery lilac strands without effort._

"_I think by then I'll have killed you for being so annoying."_

"_Hey!" Abel pouts and then smiles under his brother's hold, forgetting the dagger and the rage that lies gleaming between them._

_He wriggles under the thick covers, pretending for a moment to be a caterpillar in a cocoon. His mother smiles kindly, but there is an under-current of displeasure in it too. With her is there always some thing like discontent lurking just beneath her happy eyes. Abel has seen it, but he is a child and cannot understand. He has seen that sometimes she tells father he is wrong, and he has seen that sometimes she does not want to share. But she is his mother, and perhaps all mothers are that way? She is never cruel to him, and she is always kind to Cain. It does not take much work for him to love her utterly._

"_Go to sleep Abel." She says it with a sigh because she is so used to saying it. But he does not reach to blow out the light, and she stands, tapping her foot, waiting for him to follow the command._

"_Mother…" He wonders if he has the right words, or if she will think them important at all. But he can tell she is an indulgent mood tonight—she seats herself gently on the free side of his bed and smiles._

"_Yes?" Her long purple hair falls like a river as she leans to tuck the covers tighter around him._

"_Will we become angels when we die?" For a moment she blinks, dark eyes intrigued and unsure of what to answer._

"_Your father," she chuckles, "is not going to be an angel. He is going to be a golden dragon, and all the angels will flock and admire his shimmering light." Abel giggles in answer, because he knows that his boisterous and non-conforming father will probably be just that. _

"_What about Cain and me?" He is eagerly awaiting her answer, light eyes wide and waiting._

"_You will definitely be an angel, with the most brilliant white wings. And all the other angels will be jealous because you will be wise and strong. Your heart will be more full of love than any of God's other creatures." _

"_Really?" Abel reaches with a tiny hand to touch his mother's knee, a pure and happy smile lighting on his sleepy face. "And Cain… I want Cain to be an angel too." He runs his free hand along the feather he has refused to drop. "I want Cain to be an angel with the blackest wings! And I want all the other angels to know the angel with the whitest wings and the angel with the blackest wings are…" A yawn breaks his concentration, and it hard to keep his heavily lidded eyes more than half way open. "Meant to be together." His mother smiles again, that half pleased smile, and blows out the light._

"_Wait, wait…" He murmurs sleepily as she goes, "What are you going to be?"_

"_I don't know Abel." She shuts the door behind her quietly, and it is as if she was never there. "I don't know."_

_In the darkness, he lifts the gleaming black feather up to his eyes. Silhouetted against the dark and snowy window, he can see it: unmarred midnight. The lilac-haired angel shuts his eyes with a content sigh. "I want us all to always be together…"_

Kharl sits up in his bed, and though it is impossibly late, he stands and crosses his room to the wide window. The moon is gone; the grounds stretch out impossibly dark before him. For long moment, he watches the snow fall in silence and thinks of dreams that might as well be memories.


	5. Like Snow, Quietly

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

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**Theme**: 5, Seeking Solace  
**Characters**: Kharl, Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: None; Unwritten Cloaks scene...  
**Title Provider**: Eternal Snow (Changin' My Life)

_Like Snow, Quietly, it Continues to Pile Up...

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_

He looks at me with eyes that are jaded, in more ways than one. The delicate green, that darkens as it spreads toward the whites of his eyes and lightens just enough as it reaches for his pupils, makes his whole gaze stand out stunningly, and accusingly. I wonder if he is not seeing through me, like I am some sort of living mirror. Today he is quiet, subdued in a way that does not suit him, and it frightens me. Garfakcy is not a child—but for this moment, he seems so much like one, small and lost. He looks deeper into me, and though his eyes are clouded with long-standing hatred, there is a different light violently trying to break through.

"Why?" He asks me, and his voice wavers between tragic and furious. "It's not right." His comically fragile hands open and close like the wings of butterflies, tentatively rolling the remnants of the strawberries over and over as if that will shine away the pestilence. I can only nod. "I worked more on these than anything else." Strawberries are Garfakcy's favorite fruit, one of the sweets he refuses to pass up on summer days like these. "Nothing else spoiled." He stares at the blackening fruit as if they will call an answer up to him.

"The things you love most," the bitterness in my own voice strikes me as cruel, "are the first things to fail you." For a long time, he does not answer, and the look in his eyes says he knows, understands the truth, but will not accept it.

"It's not right," he repeats, but somehow, his voice has something so much more serious in it this time. He looks off through the garden, kicking the stone bench we're awkwardly perched on with a disinterested foot. "It's not right." And it's no longer about the fruit, is it? His eyes that were alive with sadness have darkened into something deeper and suddenly he's not a child holding his failed flowers anymore—he's himself, wise to pain, to failure and to betrayal. I want to sooth his injured pride, sooth the injuries inside him that I can't see and never will be able too. I want to comfort him, but I know I can't, that I will never find the right words.

"It always hurts," he murmurs and I listen without turning to look at him because if I don't look, I won't feel the pain he is describing. I _won't_. "So why do we bother loving things at all?"

I sit silently as the sun sets, without an answer.

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**Note:** Random Irony gets a cookie for guessing the crack side-pairing! (It was weird, wasn't it?) It's okay, I promise I will (might) _never_ do it again!  
**Note:** Leeayre gets a cookie (and a ridiculously long reply) for pointing out my grammar mistakes. (Ahh, shot through the heart.) 


	6. In the Restless Tides of Night

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 6, Break Away  
**Characters**: Kharl  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: Kharl is a birdie, because I say so.  
**Title Provider**: Overture (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

_In the Restless Tides of Night, Lightening Raises Shadows and for Moments Gives Them Life...

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_

Sometimes, it is all too much. He grips the marble balcony cruelly, and his white hands are cold. Tonight he has not worn gloves because he _wants_ to feel things. Tonight he wants to know what the frigid air feels like—but even his skin, this white flesh that is not really his own, cannot feel it correctly. It's all a false pretense, a false form pulled around him tightly like a veil to stay the hands of the world. He has worn it for so long. It hurts sometimes, and he ignores it: because this should be his real face. These delicate hands _should_ be real, this delicate smile that is a lie _should_ hold some truth. Garfakcy believes so thoroughly in his lilac eyes that it cuts him to the bone. The hollow bones.

This mouth and these lips that speak in human language, in the language of Dragons, in a language that is not his own… Sometimes he regrets his own abilities, regrets the life he has made for himself. Sometimes he regrets clipping his own wings.

The full white moon seems to mock him, to call him. _Only a marble wall…_ The words ring like shattering crystal in his mind. _Only a marble wall and so many walls that you have built inside._ He is leaning against the ice-white rail with all his weight—half what a man his size should really weigh. He knows that the carefully built, mortal-like muscle and skeleton are only illusion, knows that he could shed them as easily as cloth. And he wants to, and he does not want to. Soundlessly he watches an ivory owl take flight over the forest. Somewhere inside the castle, his companion sighs contentedly in sleep. Somewhere across the ocean, Rath turns in his nightmares.

He is not aware of giving in, he is not aware of making the choice, but something inside him must be. _If for only a little while…_ He releases the inborn spell that weaves his human form—releases it completely. There is infinite pleasure in it, warmth and power coursing suddenly where they were not before. His wings rest delicately behind him, waiting patiently for the white feather down that spreads like fire across his ivory skin. And then he is free, for the first time in four centuries, and the balcony seems suddenly too small, the marble wall suddenly a ridiculous excuse for a cage.

The owl calls to him shortly, tersely, in a way that is not welcoming and not rejecting. There is a sound like _sibling_ in it. Languidly, he flaps beside it, round light eye intrigued and unblinking. He has no hands left to wave, but his talons flex experimentally in answer. For a long while they share the cold October sky, two silent immaculate birds.

The white fire that constitutes his feathers does not burn any of the trees they pass so lowly over. Returned to his true body, he cannot smell the scent of cinnamon and ash that fills the air, thick and visible. Not in the way he would have before, not in the thick and pleasant way it will smell when he has to take back that human-like form. And he will have to take it back, he knows, because the world is not so simple. He cannot simply voice his wishes with a jeer or a song, cannot simply assuage hatred and handle enemies without a human's smile to hide behind.

The full white moon is beckoning still, but the mockery has gone from it, and it feels now like a rider, resting and dancing along the full, pure span of his wings. Turning from the night companion who does not know whether to call him Brother or Human, Kharl wonders how high he can fly with these wings that are his but are so foreign. He wonders, and laughs a trilling note, if he can fly high enough to make the moon true a presence on his shoulder—he is free for the moment of his other burdens and the weightlessness almost frightens him. He knows he cannot fly that high, is not that free, and for a moment his cruel taloned grip tightens painfully.

In the ash coated night air, the first mournful notes of a phoenix's song echo over the forest, carried by the frigid rays of moonlight.


	7. She Stares Through My Shadow

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 7, Heaven  
**Characters**: Kharl, Star Princess  
**Pairing**: Kharl/Star Princess (I know you all just went, **WHAT?.!**)  
**Warnings**: Pure and pointless fluff, snow romping, play on the interchangability of "demons" and "devils".  
**Need to Know Info**: A working knowledge of Cloaks chapters 15 and 16 would be helpful. If you don't have that, you'll just have to pretend the Star Princess and Kharl met and became friends. A tolerance for crack pairings is kinda necessary...  
**Title Provider**: In Her Eyes (Josh Groban)

_She Stares Through My Shadow, She Sees Something More...

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_

He did not expect to see her, but it instantly makes the day a shade brighter; makes the sun (burningly white where it shines against the snow) seem kinder, seem warmer. Perhaps it is a natural talent of hers, to shed light without effort. Her delicate rose eyes glimmer with happiness and a girlish excitement that brings a smile unbidden to his face. Her breath clouds mist-like as she stands before his open door.

"Lord Alchemist." The fragile woman smiles too, coral lips parting just slightly, enough to bare her enjoyment.

"It's been a long time," he leans on the doorframe, a mockery of casualness that doesn't suit a man of his stature, "Hime-sama." Her cheeks color suddenly, and he wonders if it is because a demon of his strength is bowing to her or because of something else entirely. She looks for a moment over his shoulder, as if she is expecting to be invited in. A mischievous idea catches hold of him, lighting in his lilac eyes like fire. "To what do I owe this visit?" He moves just enough that she'll have to strain to see around him.

"I—" she has realized he is teasing her, and cannot understand why, "I wanted to see you." The pale pink has not faded from her cheeks, and something about that warms something inside him.

"Really." It's more a statement when he says it than a question, and there is the ghost of a pleasant smirk in the corners of his lips. "I had not realized I was such desirable company." The good-natured sound of it sets her on edge, because this is not how demons are supposed to act. She cannot stop herself from thinking that Kharl is unlike any demon she has ever met. When he steps over the doorsill toward her, it is not easy to keep herself from stepping back. The porch is small and, she notes with revelation, Kharl is quite tall. She reaches barely to his collar bone, and when they are standing so close together, she has to stare up. It makes her feel smaller suddenly, more like the girl she is.

"I wanted to see you too," he says it in a hesitant way, as if he has just realized it for himself. Without the slightest of warning –she has found he is fond of surprises– he reaches for her arm and pulls her down the steps. His grip has a practiced lightness to it, and she knows he is gentle because even a tiny bit of strength could bruise her. The thought drifts through her mind, and she refuses to let it take a solid form. He could tear her apart with less effort than it takes him to walk beside her—but he would not. She can feel the steady beat of his heart and hears each of his feelings in its monotone melody. For a moment she feels what he feels, and happiness that is both of theirs sounds an untouched beat.

For a long time, she simply walks beside him, mirroring his footsteps over the uneven forest terrain. There is something peaceful in it, something that she knows she will miss. She does not tell him (cannot tell him) but this will be the last time they will see each other. He knows, she imagines, looking at the delicate curve of his jaw and the lilac of his eyes that is calm but lit with solemnity. He is brilliant, and he must know, and it hurts suddenly—as if she is betraying something by leaving this world that is not her own. It is almost a physical pain, and wordlessly, she wishes that Kharl could feel her heart like she can feel his. She does not want him, not even for one moment, to think she does not regret.

There is a snap of a branch that stills them both from shock, and suddenly, a miniature avalanche of snow tumbles from the canopy and, as if by fate, pours over him, down the back of his cloak, over his shoulders, resting complacently on top of his pale plumed hair. His pale eyes blink owlishly at her, and he almost sneezes when a cold drop falls onto the end of his nose. For a moment, she is silent, utterly so, and then she can no longer hold herself back. A giggle escapes her, and then another, and in seconds, without even meaning to be, she is caught up in a gale of laughter. He has the dignity to look momentarily cross, and then he is laughing too, a deeper and louder sound that rings like church bells in her ears. She is so busy covering her wide smile with her hands, to hold in the giggles, that she notices his movements far too late.

With deft hands, he lifts a large chunk of the snow that had settled on his head and dumps it over her. A gasp of shock brings another round of laughter to his mouth, and she shivers and shakes the cold off quickly.

"That was quite cruel of you, Lord Alchemist." There is a note of imminent retribution in it that makes him nervous. He hastily backs away, and not a moment too late—she tosses a handful of loose snow at him that slips beneath his collar and makes goosebumps rise on hidden skin. Her gentle smile does not change, but he can see a flicker of excitement in her roseate eyes that makes his heart beat faster. He is running by the time she has found a decently firm patch of snow to make snowballs from.

They are both soaked from multiple strikes of melted snow, and he worries that perhaps she will catch cold, but shakes off the thought. Fragile as she is, there is a power rivaling his own inside her, and beneath the timid exterior and the breakable heart she bears, he knows there is a firm and powerful person lurking. She is a princess who will soon become a queen—there is a hint of the wise and tactful ruler she will become hidden just under her surface. With contented, tired sighs, they fall beside each other in the snow. It is cold, and both their cloaks fail to warm them.

He can feel her form beside him, panting misty breathes and smiling a wide and pure smile. Her rose locks are untamed and windswept, falling over him and tangling in his pale fingers. He wants to suggest they make snow angels, but suddenly there is something _painful_ in the idea. Who is the angel?

He turns to look at her in the wrong moment, the same moment she turns to look at him, and their lips are dangerously close, and their eyes are dangerously inviting. He can feel her warm breath dance across his lips, melting the ice, and she must feel his too—she does not move, she does not blink, he wonders if she is waiting for something or is trying to say words neither one of them wants to hear.

He pulls back and helps her up with a frozen hand and his frozen heart.

The Princess of Heaven takes his hand with trembling fingers, and the happiness in her eyes is gone. She is engaged to be married, engaged to take her place as the pure-hearted ruler of another realm. She is engaged to a time and a world where he has no place—and her selfish heart breaks beneath his gaze. She does not cry, does not let her lips, cold and betrayed, slip into a frown. She laces her arm in his, the frigid expanse of his sleeve, and walks beside him.

Holds onto him, for just a moment.

He walks but sees nothing, and inside his mind, he shivers and wonders. He holds her tightly, because he never will again, and wonders.

Heaven wanted the devil, for just a moment.


	8. I Like the Way You Move

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Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 8, Innocence  
**Characters**: Avis Rara, Ruwalk, Akano Chi  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: More innuendo than you can shake a stick at, awkward situations, obnoxious OC...  
**Need to Know Info**: 赤の血, Akano Chi, is a Cloaks original character, one of three Dragon Fighters whose official job is "Make Avis Rara's life as chaotic as possible". He's just cheap entertainment.  
**Title Provider**: I Like the Way (Bodyrockers)

_But Most of All, Yeah, I Like the Way You Move

* * *

_

He shifted nervously against the table's edge, trying very hard to ignore the eyes that he felt stabbing into his back. They had been there almost ten minutes now, silently watching, ever so careful to stay hidden, even from the corners of his gaze. He could sense the spirit, knew the owner of the energy was no threat, but it still made him tremble. He was in the middle of the Dragon Castle, and every second of unwanted attention was potentially dangerous. He scribbled furiously on the report, filling it out with more enthusiasm than it ever deserved.

"AUGH! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" A voice howled out his exact sentiments, and the stranger who had been _spying_ stomped determinately into the room, closed his hands over the doctor's shoulders and shook him roughly. "WHY?!" the intruder cried, real bubbly tears pooling in his shockingly blue eyes.

"I-I'm sorry?" Kharl noticed that his voice has a nervous tic to it that sounded almost suspicious. It was because he saw the unsheathed blade hanging at the strange man's side—a Dragon Fighter, and his arms were clinging uncomfortably tightly around Kharl's neck. The red-headed boy sniffed loudly and sobbed mock heart-break into the doctor's collar. Weakly, Avis Rara reached up and patted the spy on the head, around his long scarlet ponytail.

"Why couldn't you have been a _girl_?!" the boy wailed in utter despair.

"W-what?!"

"Ruwalk said there would be a cute nurse! Rara-sensei _is_ cute, and _is_ a nurse, but… He's a guy!" The mournful look in the younger man's eyes was enough to make Kharl feel momentarily guilty, ridiculous as that thought was.

"I'm very sorry, but I'm quite—" Kharl found himself at a wall, having a Dragon Fighter crowding his tiny office and showing no signs of leaving.

"I startled you, right?" The red-head straightened suddenly, untangling himself from the unfortunate object of his broken-hearted affection, and bowed stiffly in apology. "I do that a lot! My name's Akano Chi." Kharl nodded politely, not quite sure how to react to the sudden and unwelcome introduction.

"And is there… something you need?" Kharl prayed there wasn't so that he could hurry the boy out of his office and lock the door. But, as if his words were some sort of invitation, the blue-eyed boy, _Chi_, smiled brightly.

"Come out of this stuffy closet Rara-sensei! You could totally use a break; you've been working all day!" Kharl didn't have the time to ask how he knew that. "Since I can't check you out, we'll go check out the maids!"

"Check? But if the any of the maids needed a check up, they would have come by already." Kharl blinked his fake blue-green eyes, unsure of why the obnoxious boy was now staring him in unbroken shock.

"No, no, no…" Chi muttered, wrapping a most unwelcome hand around Avis's shoulders, a smug boyish smirk darting over his face. "We're gonna go _bird_ watching."

"Birds? Really?" It was actually an interesting invitation, and Kharl found himself very much wanting to say yes. He hadn't had a chance to research Dusis fauna at all, and the birds here were all exotic and foreign. With a swift glance at the report, which thanks to his prior nervousness was already finished, he decided that it couldn't hurt to leave the cramped office for a little while. The smell of the sterilizer was starting to irritate his nose...

-x-x-x-

"Oh man, check that chick out! She's so hot!" Kharl was quickly realizing that Akano-san's idea of bird watching didn't involve very many birds at all. _Chick_, Kharl discovered, was some sort of Dusis slang for 'young female'. It made him bristle and laugh simultaneously, but he did not tell Akano that there was a time when both he and "Lord Rath, Warrior Extraordinaire!" or whatever it was that these Dragon Fighters labeled him, could also have been called chicks. "Really hot," the red-headed man whistled appreciatively under his breath, and Kharl was struck with confusion, again.

"Akano-san, I'm a doctor, and I can tell very easily when someone has a fever. I'm certain that she's not far above the standard Dragon temperature." The red-head stared back at him, mouth agape. Kharl swore one of younger man's eyes twitched.

"No. She's _hot_. Fine? A babe? A goddess? Foxy?" The blond doctor felt the beginnings of a headache starting to form. This was like trying to hold a conversation in two different languages. "Come on man, you can't tell me you don't want a piece of that!" The red-head flailed like a startled parrot, as the innocent maid continued to dust the open-air corridor obliviously. "I'd eat her up!"

Kharl could not stop an estranged shiver. There was nothing in the storybooks suggesting Dragons practiced cannibalism! "Akano-san, I don't think eating others is a healthy past-time…" The Fighter had the grace to look scandalized.

"Rara-sensei, you seriously need to—"

-x-x-x-

"Ruwalk-sama, I'm very concerned about one of your Fighters, an Akano Chi." Avis Rara wandered down the recently cleaned hallways beside the Saffron Officer, whose normally happy eyes were narrowed in worry.

"You think he's sick, Rara-sensei?"

"No, not exactly…" He wondered exactly how to voice his worries without sounding overly involved. "I was simply interested in assessing his mental state. While I was with him today, he seemed… incapable of speaking coherently." Ruwalk's raised eyebrows asked for an explaination. "Well, he started off by confusing birds with women and grew increasingly less comprehensible. He seemed to be under the impression that several of the castle's maids were suffering acute fever, and that they had all been possessed by fox demons." Ruwalk stopped walking, and stared at the smaller man with unrestrained bewilderment.

"And then he was utterly perplexed when I told him a woman his own age could not be a 'babe'." A sinking feeling struck Avis, as he watched Ruwalk's mouth slid open into a stunned gape. "He even suggested that he finds females delicious to eat…" The sudden fluster in the Saffron officer's face was no more reassuring than his previous reaction.

"And then he seemed to lose all ability to use common grammar, and did not understand me at all when I corrected him. One _lays down_, one does not _get laid_."

Ruwalk, blushing an unhealthy apple shade, made a move to pat the doctor reassuringly on the shoulder, but stopped halfway through the motion.

"You know… I wouldn't worry too much. Akano-kun has always been special. Really! D-Don't let it bother you. Oh, look how late it is, I have to go…" The Dragon Officer spun on his high heel and vanished swiftly around the corner, clutching his sides and horribly red in the face.

Kharl got the distinct feeling he was being laughed at.


	9. We Might as Well be Strangers

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Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 9, Drive  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: Book 9 again, just a slightly earlier moment.  
**Title Provider**: We Might as Well be Strangers (Keane)

_We Might as Well be Living in a Different World, We Might as Well be Strangers  
_

* * *

He knows what is coming, he knew it before, ages ago, knew it before coming out here had ever become his intention. The words strike him like blades, and Rath doesn't need to do anymore than hiss the Alchemist's name with distaste—that is painful enough. That is more painful than the sword, the very blade Rath seeks to end his life with, could ever be. Kharl is silent, because there seems to be no fitting words, and he wonders if, after all that has happened, anything he could ever say would be sufficient. 

Rath's eyes are hard as the steel he wields, harder, and the coldness in them is as sharp as shards of ice, as inviting as a blizzard of falling snow. Kharl regrets that a boy –so young, still!– could have eyes so shadowed by violence, by bloodshed. It seems a mockery of innocence, the pale red depths that should have, once were, so bright and open. Somewhere inside, he knows that it is his fault; everything is his fault, but he ignores it, because if he won't admit it's true then it is not. The Dragon Prince's eyes promise him a swift and painful death, and Kharl remembers a time when they promised so much more.

The ash stills the air between them, until he feels like they are sharing the same poisonous, precious breaths. He knows that he is going to die, and for a moment it doesn't matter. Because it is Rath, Rath who he lives for. There is a horrible sort of knowledge in that: that his life would count for nothing if Rath were to die. There is a horrible sort of irony in the hatred and the love that fights and embraces between them.

The black-winged angel can only stare, as if he is afraid to believe his own eyes, as if he is afraid to find his father suddenly standing before him. It is cold—not just his gaze, but the forest around them—and Kharl thinks it will begin to snow. It seems only fitting.

For a moment, the Alchemist wonders what has brought him here, wonders what force has dragged him to this undesired meeting? What feeling made this body cross the ocean to see him, only _see_ him. Surely it was not hope. There is nothing left to hope for, because Rath will never love him. He came here knowing that, it will be the last thing he will know: Rath's hatred runs as strongly as the foreign blood in his veins.

He thinks it foolish suddenly, to have come. And it is foolish, but that never would have stopped him. He cannot put a name to it, but there is something driving him to this rendezvous, driving him to look into Rath's sharp eyes, to beg without words for forgiveness.

He cannot name it, but there is something in the confusion on Rath's face, something in the ghost of a childish smile he remembers so well, something in the shared blood that keeps them both alive. There is something in their _memories_ that drives him to wish for love and settle for hatred.

"_Sayonara, Chichi-ue."_

"It's been a long time, Rath."

* * *

Translation Note: _Sayonara, Chichi-ue _means "Good-bye, father." However, it contains a lot of connotations that English doesn't have. Sayonara has a strong note of finality in it, and it is considered somewhat bad luck to say this if you intend to see that person ever again. Saying Sayonara implies an _end_. _Chichi-ue_ is an extremely respectful way to say father, meaning more accurately "my honored father". It implies a great deal of reverence and respect, but can also imply distance and inequality. 


	10. Maybe This Moment is Just a Fantasy

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_**

**Theme**: 10, Breathe Again  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath, mentions of Rune and Thatz  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: Book 14's infamous Avis Rara and Rath scene.  
**Title Provider**: Eternally (Utada)

_Maybe This Moment is Just a Fantasy, but I Can Feel You Breathe_

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For a moment, he hardly dares to hope. He knows it is true, he trusts in the women they have both foolishly, thankfully, come to respect. He believes that Cesia's power is an almost too perfect fit; he believes that the artifact that has crossed worlds to fulfill his heart's desire, _the only thing he could ever dream of wanting now_, would never fail. He believes, but hope is foreign to him, and something inside him is skeptical. Something inside him has been screaming for hours, _he's dead, you let him die, and he's not coming back!_ He is afraid to give in and feel, afraid to believe and be burned again. But it's true, isn't it? Rath is alive: reborn after his death like an immortal phoenix, like a monster.

He can feel the force of the rebuilt spirit from floors above—not the sense of a demon's ki but a father's sense of the soul he knows is inherently his own. He flees; he leaves the battles and the bodies behind, even though it is his responsibility to save them. He leaves behind the death because it seems cruel see blood and torn flesh when his eyes are dreaming of resurrection.

The knob, the only thing that separates them now, is warm beneath his hand, and he wants to believe it is inviting. It's a lie, but one he does not need sugar to swallow. The wall is so thin, but an eternity stretches there, between the blood-stained boards and insulation. He opens the dark oak door finally, does not make a sound.

It surprises him that the other Dragon Knights are already there, curled beside the bed like worshippers at an altar. Rath lies limply, and for a moment Kharl fears he has made some mistake, let his dreams get the better of him… But he can see the slow and steady rise and fall of the boy's chest beneath the immaculate covers. Gingerly he crosses the room, shedding his disguise just as he lays down the ash spell that will keep them all asleep. As much as he would like to speak to his son, to be seen, there is a danger in it that he would never invoke.

Hesitant, fearful, he approaches the boy who was dead, the boy who should never have died, the boy he will never be able to protect because the demon blood they share is part of what is destroying him. What would he not give to see into crimson eyes not clouded by hatred and lies? What would he not give to hold Rath again, the child he once was? He takes one pale hand with his own, marveling at how their skin is still exactly the same shade, marveling at the warmth of the touch. There is blood beating in that wrist, in that heart. Hope and happiness flutter like freed birds in his chest, and for a moment he can only lay beside the one creature he loves whole-heartedly, and listen.

The blood they share beats in that heart, and Rath breathes again.


	11. Simple Thing, Where Have You Gone

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**Theme**: 11, Memory  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath (Ruin)  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Traditional Alchemical vocabulary and pointless cuteness.  
**Need to Know Info**: "Ruin" is the name Kharl gave to Rath before they were separated, in Cloaks. Ruin is elvish for "red flame".  
**Title Provider**: Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)

_Simple Thing, Where have You Gone? If You Have a Minute, Why Don't We Go...  
_

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"_Father! Father!" The Alchemist looks up from his notes just in time. A black-clad blur rips through the doorway and slams into the taller man with almost enough force to knock him off the chair—and more than enough force to send the painstakingly written pages of notes spiraling uselessly all over the floor. _

"_Yes, Ruin?" Kharl moves the small boy to his knees, smiling despite having his week's work reduced to chaos and clutter. It does not matter to the older of the two, but Ruin blinks crimson eyes at the mess his entrance had made, and his excited posture slumps. The little shoulders drop weakly, and his smile dissolves like it had never been there to begin with._

"_I ruined it again. I'm sorry Chichi-ue." As if to make up for the smile they had lost, the Alchemist grins only more sweetly, ruffling his son's dark hair with a pale hand. _

"_Will you pick them up for me?" Ruin nods eagerly, leaping from his father's hold, and gathering the papers with all haste and care, watching so he will not smudge the ink or crease the edges._

"_I could…I could put them back in order," he suggests, a hopeful glint flashing in his wide red eyes._

"_Can you?" Kharl is surprised, because he knows too well that Ruin has never taken an interest in Alchemy, can barely sit still through his lessons._

"_I can," he insists, and his eyebrows slip into a determined furrow. Whether he can or not, Kharl knows there is no persuading him otherwise now. The Alchemist nods and lets the boy return to his lap, stack of papers almost too thick for his tiny hands. Peering over the edge of the high table with only a little difficulty, the dark-haired boy spreads the parchment pieces delicately and begins to read. Together, a pair of lilac eyes and a pair of crimson scan the symbols with the look of utmost concentration._

"_I know!" The small boy grins brightly up at his father. "It has to be this one!" He waves a piece energetically._

"_Why?"_

"_Because you said the Red King has one symbol but is made of two parts, and right here," he waves an errant finger at the page, "the chemical structure changes from two symbols, um… Mercury and…"_

"_Sulfur."_

"_Right. And Mercury and Sulfur make Cinnabar." _

"_The Red King." Though the younger demon hates it, Kharl ruffles his hair again. "Were you actually listening to me all this time Ruin?"_

"_Uh, most of the time?" His sheepish smile is endearing, and the Alchemist smiles too. He feels that he is always smiling now. "Okay, I'm going to do it all!" The boy turns back to the papers with a furious determination. He keeps the promise he has made, and sets the pages one after another._

"_The Virgo from this page goes with the one I just had, right? Because you're distilling the Hydrogen Nitride."_

"_Correct." Kharl can't help being impressed. _

"_And, this one… Hematite is a magnetic stone, which explains the Scorpio with the iron ore at the bottom of this page. And this one…" The boy hesitates a moment, staring at the symbols as if they might give him something more to work with. "Quicksilver should be followed by Luna right?"_

"_No," the older demon lifts the paper from Ruin's hand and selects one of the few left on tabletop. "Quicksilver is followed by Sol, and proceeds from Luna."_

"_What, why?" The boy looks for a moment as if he might argue the situation of the defining symbols, and there is a pout evident on his face._

"_It takes both heat and cold to manage Quicksilver, it's true, but the definition of the substance must begin with the ruling symbol. In this case, it must be Luna, the ruling sign for silver."_

"_But Quicksilver isn't made of silver at all! It's only Mercury!"_

"_Well, I didn't make the rules." Ruin shoots him a disbelieving glare that brings a chuckle bubbling up from inside his father. The boy had always found it impossible to believe that such a strange science had existed before Kharl had been an Alchemist. _

_At last, only one paper remains, and Ruin's scarlet eyes scan it just to say he has read it all. "Chichi-ue… What's this symbol?" He points to the last and largest mark on the page, a sideways cross and circle._

"_The symbol for soul."_

"_What is this spell Father? It's not gold or anything like that..."_

"_It's for creating demons." The little boy goes quiet, because he knows, knows that a long time ago he was just symbols on a paper like this, just a stack of notes that a disinterested hand could have written. _

"_Not demons like me, right?" His father smiles, a different sort of smile that has sadness in it too. He holds the little boy close for moment, in an embrace that is warm and cold and as ephemeral as Quicksilver._

"_Never like you. There could only ever be one Ruin," Kharl murmurs. The dark-haired boy breathes out gently, the only sign that something inside him needed reassurance. "Now," the Alchemist rests his head on his son's and the boy giggles quietly, "you had a reason for coming to see me before all this began, didn't you?"_

"_Yeah, yeah!" He cheers, jumping free of his father's hold. "Today is that day! You promised you would teach me to fly today!"_

"_Today, I said?"_

"_Yes, you said today and you forgot!" The indignant look in his scarlet eyes is oddly adorable._

"_You can forgive me, right?"_

"_Will you really teach me?" Ruin has already undone the spell and freed his small black wings._

"_I wouldn't lie to you." Kharl mirrors his son with a smile and flutter of immaculate feathers. For a moment, Ruin stares, wondering if someday he will be so perfectly made, with wings like an angel. _

_Then he takes his father's hand and pulls, pulls him from the dusty library and into the sun, into the wind. _


	12. Perfect by Nature

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_**

**Theme**: 12, Insanity  
**Characters**: Kharl  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Rambling  
**Need to Know Info**: None  
**Title Provider**: Everybody's Fool (Evanescence)

_Perfect by Nature, Icons of Self-Indulgence_

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There is a feather fine line, someone once told him, between insanity and genius. He has lived under this saying for centuries, knows the truth in it and knows the lie in it. Garfakcy would tell him that there is no difference between his brand of genius and insanity—in fact, he wonders if the boy would call him a genius at all. They know each other too well, and he has learned that when one comes to understand a genius, there is nothing remarkable about them at all. Knowing, really knowing a genius is to find they are completely ordinary creatures with mouths that say what they want and minds that refuse to obey.

In the end, he decides, whether one is mad or is a genius depends on who is questioned. How many people would say his mind is twisted, would say his mind has been lost to the science of his art? He can think of a multitude of them, and rolls the names on his tongue. There is the Dragon Knight of Water, Rune, and his princess-mate, the sovereigns of a race he has virtually exterminated. If they do not think him mad, they must think him exceptionally cruel, and he knows they could never understand that death is a necessity if greater things are to be born. There is Rath and the Dragons in their peace-loving castle—but they only fail to understand him because a lack of love between them limits coexistence.

Perhaps Lykouleon, on his cold throne, does not think the Alchemist, in his cold castle, has fallen into insanity. Kharl blinks in the darkness, and wonders if this could be true. Lykouleon, who knows that sacrifices must be made, Lykouleon who plays life like a game of chess (where every piece is slightly more precious than they should be), Lykouleon who knows sorrow and betrayal… Kharl thinks for a moment that they could understand each other—it does not make him _hate_ the man any less.

Was it madness to slaughter faeries to create a demon? Was it genius to transform such purity into a creature capable of building souls—was it genius to create a creature with which to play God? Was it madness to throw himself in his enemies' keep; was it genius to service his own whims and slip among them so undetected?

Kharl turns the white quill feather over in his pale hand, admiring its blue sheen in the moonlight. There is a feather fine line, someone once told him, between insanity and genius. He has lived under this saying for centuries, knows the truth in it and knows the lie in it. There _is_ a line between insanity and genius—but it is so much finer than a feather. The line between genius and madness is not straight; it is far less corporeal than this shimmering blue fletched edge in the moon rays.

It is thin enough that even he, sometimes, cannot tell the difference.

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Review Reply:  
  
**Random Irony: **The entire story was in italics because it was a memory, yes. As far as the indication for such, the theme for that challenge was "Memory". XD The themes are listed at the top of the author's note/intro thing, and they can be really helpful for establishing the setting/conditions of the chapter. Thanks for reviewing!


	13. Where Will I Meet My Fate?

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**Theme**: 13, Misfortune (Miss Fortune)  
**Characters**: Kharl, Delte, Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Liberal douses of irony.  
**Need to Know Info**: ...The reason Delte's deck has a One Winged Angel card.  
**Title Provider**: A Bad Dream (Keane)

_Where Will I Meet My Fate? When Will I Meet My End? _

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He wanders the streets with a delighted and disinterested eye, taking in everything but not really stopping to inspect anything. It's nothing that he hasn't seen before; nothing that he feels really deserves his attention. Of course, it is a Fortuneteller's street, and he has never believed in fate or destiny. How can he possibly be expected to believe that his life is outside his control—that the events he forcefully molds each day are actually a series of predestined prophecies? It is ridiculous, in the basest sense of the word. If he decides suddenly to turn cartwheels in the street, will that too have been a push by fate?

He is here more from curiosity than belief. Fortunetellers are almost a breed of their own—and power, if there really is any to found among them, is not something he will willingly pass up. Some of the shops and tents resonate with an interesting ki, but most of the soothsayers he finds within them are demons, using youkai abilities to dazzle peasants and make a penny or two. Demon magic doesn't interest him at all anymore, because he knows more than enough about monsters, and about himself. A chuckle escapes him at the thought that he could probably pass for a successful fortuneteller just by muddling the minds of customers or confusing them with beautiful lights and ghostly fires.

A few of the shops haven't got any interesting aura about them at all—these are human fortunetellers, he thinks, laughing at the oxymoron already there. They are more intelligent than demon fortunetellers, he knows, because they must impress customers with mental ability rather than intriguing light shows and smoky tricks. But he is no more interested in vague personality and visual analysis than he is youki. A small sigh escapes him, and just when he thinks he'll have to move on (and actually do what he came to do, which is pick up a sample of native Chantel plants) an old-fashioned building at the end of the street catches his senses.

_Spirit Tribe!_ He can feel the purifying energy from the twenty meters or so that he has yet to cross, and it intrigues him. Yes, Chantel is fairly close to Fiori Forest, but a faerie living (and working, he giggles at the strangeness of the idea: a faerie doing something other than tending flowers all day!) outside the forest is something he has never come across before. And a faerie fooling innocents into paying for fortunes that surely must not be true seems simply wrong… This is a place he wants to see the inside of, and without even thinking about quite how he will stage an inspection of the Spirit Tribe power, he wanders into the shop.

It is dim inside, the windows gently curtained, and the lamps keep low. There are mirrors lining the wall, and velvet drapes the bureaus and chairs effortlessly. The entire front room smells heavily of incense—faerie noses are certainly not as delicate as demons', because he can hardly stand the pervasive scent of burning oils. A bell tinkles above the door when he enters, sounding a high and pleasant note, and as if summoned, a small woman walks stately into the room to greet him.

Her hair is short, a pale green, like the under-sides of blue-olive Snowberry leaves, and her eyes are a dark emerald, wide and inviting.

"Welcome." She smiles at him gently, but he can see something flicker in her face for just a moment, and he wonders if she has discovered his true nature. Today he has forgone the human disguise he normally wears among mortals—this is too near to Draqueen to allow the ash magic to dampen his senses. For a faerie, rounding his ears and dulling his fangs would probably not be enough… "Would you like to have your fortune told?" she presses on, seemingly unfazed, in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"Miss _Fortuneteller_, I find myself entirely unconvinced that you can tell my distant future or even what I intend to eat for breakfast tomorrow." The woman sighs, and he realizes immediately that she is used to disbelief.

"I am Delte, the main fortuneteller for this shop. I read cards." She shuffles the intricately decorated deck as he watches, and the movements of her wrists are precise and practiced. She has been doing this for quite a while, and he wonders briefly just how old she is—it is always impossible to tell with faeries, even more than with youkai. With demons, aging stops several decades after sexual maturity; with faeries, he almost laughs, it seems like it stops several decades _before_. She stretches the deck across the table to him, and he knows this is some method of tapping into her customers' energies—he keeps his ki tightly locked away, and does not even brush her hand with his. Their powers are so diametrically opposite that he fears he will pollute her.

She shuffles the deck again quickly, and then with expert flicks, draws three cards from the top, bottom and center. They lie face down between the demon and the faerie ominously, and vaguely, Kharl wonders just what they will say. Nothing true, he is sure. Nothing that won't be changed by every tiny decision he makes—because if there is one he has learned, it is that everything has rippling effects (and how could anyone ever hope to read a future when so much changes every day?)

She turns the first card slowly, taking in its image with steady eyes. Kharl watches it too, and is surprised to see its blank face shimmer. Ink, as if from invisible pens, traces shapes across the top of the card. A wolf's face and cobweb-like strands of fire seem almost to ripple across the paper surface, and even though the entire thing is indicative of heat, there is something cold, impossibly cold, in the creature's wild eyes. For a moment, she is silent, and then the faerie woman fixes him with a heavy stare.

"Do you have any children?" The questions blindsides him completely, and for more than a few seconds, he can only gape in confusion.

"No,"he answers finally, still failing to make the connection between burning wolves and babies. She shifts nervously, turning the card over in her palm and frowning deeply.

"A terrible tragedy is going to befall your son… and you." He shakes his head, ready to stand and leave before this meeting becomes any stranger. She turns the second card over with ease, and they both watch the spells trace an elegant dragon across the paper face. She frowns again, as if she disbelieves the fortune she is reading as much as he does.

"Transformation," she murmurs, "savior, blood, Light… Your son is going to be a member of the Dragon Tribe." Kharl thinks for a moment that he will burst out laughing. As if _anything_ could be less possible! He deliberates between leaving now and staying to see what the last card has to say—surely nothing could be more entertaining than the thought of any child of his ever magically ending up in the Dragon clan… She turns the third card, and he watches with interest and disinterest as the lines trace a chain-bound coffin.

"Death," she whispers tremulously, "death and Rebirth. The Lord of Light and Darkness, the fate of the world…" There is an incredulous look on her face, and she shivers in her pale dress. "This is—"

"Quite silly," he finishes for her, and drops a bag of coin onto the table. "I don't have any children, I don't expect any, and the chances of my ever being connected to the Dragon Tribe are as slim as you joining the Demon Army."

"But—" she starts and grasps for the right words.

"But this is certain fate?" He knows he is being rude and almost doesn't care. "Miss Fortuneteller, I firmly believe that _inevitable_ things," he passes an errant hand over the cards on the table, "are prone to change." And then he is gone.

Delte watches his breezing exit and sighs to herself. This reading… When her look settles on the cards, she can not help but gasp—because all three designs had been rearranged into identical angels, shimmering wings spreading beautifully across the card faces. For a moment, they remain that way, immaculate and flawless. But then, as if being corrupted, the center card darkens with blood and the angel's delicate left wing becomes crippled and rots away. She sits for a moment longer, watching, but nothing else changes… Something in the ominous form of the bloodied angel makes her believe the stranger never intended the change.

"Incidentally," she mutters to herself as she shuffles the deck clear again, "You are going to have strawberry pancakes for breakfast tomorrow."

x - x - x

"How was your trip?" Garfakcy asks over the table the next morning, eyeing his master with a curious gaze.

"Strange," the Alchemist admits. "I had my fortune read in Chantel, by an absolutely bizarre woman."

"You actually bothered to go into a fortuneteller? I hope you didn't pay her well." His housekeeper shakes his head in exasperation.

Kharl stares at his fork, brimming with a syrupy mess of strawberry and pastry, and murmurs to himself. "A son in the Dragon Tribe? How utterly ridiculous."


	14. Precious and Fragile Things

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**Theme**: 14, Smile  
**Characters**: Kharl, Zouma  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: I am completely aware of the impossibility of this setting. It's an AU, yeah...  
**Title Provider**: Precious (Depeche Mode)

_Precious and Fragile Things Need Special Handling_

* * *

The little demon laughs brightly, amethyst eyes wide and excited. Without being asked the Alchemist repeats his trick, turning the red rose back into an empty china teacup.

"How'd you do that?" the purple-haired boy asks in earnest, and something in it tugs painfully at Kharl's heart—because as much as he wants to believe that this child, Zouma, is really the Left Bird he raised with such delicate care, he knows they are not same. The same body maybe, the same soul, but the memories are utterly different. He does not tell the boy that once upon a time, Left Bird would have known how to work such simple magic.

"You could do it, if you wanted," he offers, as quiet and as gently as he can, but he desperately wants the boy to learn, to want to learn from him.

"I don't think I could." Kharl sees the flicker of disbelief and dislike in those wide childish eyes, and it saddens him. This is not the intelligent and indomitable Left Bird he remembers only too well. Nevertheless, behind the weakness, he can see something like a flicker of hope and interest, something of the thirst for knowledge that was ingrained in the demon who was once his precious companion. Without a word he hands the teacup to the smaller youkai, putting tiny fingers in all the places they need to be.

"Do you know what this cup is made from?" The boy looks like he wants to say glass for a moment, but then he blinks slowly and the word falls from his mouth easily.

"Bone," he says, and seems surprised to hear it. Kharl realizes immediately that while Zouma can use his powers, he is nowhere near understanding them.

"When I do it, I simply change the atoms. But you cannot do that because you do not know Alchemy." The boy stares at him, through him, into his mind, and for a moment, the lilac-haired man is forcibly reminded that Left Bird is the governor of the soul, and knows (knew, he corrects himself) as much about the mind as Kharl himself does. "If you want to do the same thing, you should change the _spirit_."

"Teacups and roses have spirits?"

"Anything that is alive or was once living contains traces of a soul. It is built into every microscopic cell of their forms. This bone china came from a living creature. Regardless of whether or not that beast or the rose you might make have the mental capacities we do, they still possess spirit."

"I see..." The boy turns the teacup over in his hand as if it will suddenly start speaking to him. "But how do I change a spirit?" The Alchemist says nothing; he presses the tiny boy's hands tighter around the cold surface of the cup.

"I can't tell you," he smiles faintly, a look that is distant and sad, "but I think you can remember." Zouma's eye dart between the cup in his hands and the pale eyes of the man propped against the tree before him.

"I can remember…" He knows that once upon a time, this would have been child's play. He knows that once upon a time, the Alchemist would not have treated him so kindly, like a student or a friend, but would have treated him as Left Bird: a pet, a tool. The lilac-haired man smiles gently, encouraging him without words; Zouma cannot help but think that they have both changed beyond recognition. Determined, he closes his eyes and calls his ki, just a trace, and reaches it toward the cup.

Kharl can feel the tiny spike of demon energy, sees that it is well controlled. He is impressed, as he would never have expected the boy to maintain such skill manipulating youki. For a long while, he simply waits, wondering if like a few scattered memories, the knowledge of Transmutation will come back to the boy. The grounds stretch out around them, impeccably well-tended and beautiful in the spring sunshine.

He catches himself thinking that Garfakcy would love these gardens, but crushes the thought before it can be fully born. Even half formed, it pierces like a blade, a coldness pressing heavily against his heart. Nervously, (he is afraid it has become a habit now), the Alchemist fiddles with the Dragon Amulet that weighs lightly around his neck. Behind him, he can hear someone shouting and the routine clash of swords that announces it is past noon, and Tetheus is giving his daily sword instruction.

"I did it!" The call snatches his attention back like a burn, and he finds the tiny demon flapping his arms in an excited fashion that would have looked less silly on a bird. "I did it, I did it Master Kharl!" The title surprises Zouma too, because his cheeks color with shock and the celebration drains away from him quickly. "Uh…"

"I see." The single red rose glimmers in the boy's small hands, and he looks at it proudly.

"I _did_ remember, Master Kharl."

The pure and happy smile on that child-like face is something Left Bird could never have given him—and the Alchemist finds something new to treasure.


	15. All the Things I Didn't Do for You

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_**

**Theme**: 15, Silence  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath  
**Pairing**: Umm... It can be read as Kharl/Rath, if that's how you want to read it. But I meant it platonically.  
**Warnings**: Emo boys abound.  
**Need to Know Info**: none...  
**Title Provider**: Hate Me (Blue October)

_Hate Me Today, Hate Me Tomorrow, Hate Me for All the Things I Didn't Do for You_

* * *

The boy quakes, rage pooling in every pore of his body. His teeth, fanged canines wickedly bared, clench; his fists ball at his sides. His brow crushes the redness of his eyes that seem darker now with fury. The ominous twinkle of a bell shatters their silence, but Kharl is not afraid. The cold steel of the bell, of the sword, rolls in his gloved hand innocently and uselessly.

_Rath,_ he wants to say, l_isten to me._ But the words don't come, can't come, would only be ignored. The Dragon Prince looks as if any second he will hurl the most powerful flames he can at the man—but they would only be ignored as well. Fire has reduced it all to ash, the Alchemist's heart, and there's nothing left anymore to burn. He takes a step toward the boy, a friendly step, open and harmless. Even that is regarded with fear, with fury, and the only reason Rath does not take a step back is because he cannot: he is already at the wall, cold stone digging into his back.

The Dragon Prince runs through every spell he knows, desperate for any one that might _free_ him. There is nothing; he knows that instinctive terror is clouding everything in his head, he knows that he should not be afraid but cannot help it—because this is not another demon, not another attempt at atonement, this is a man capable of blotting out a hundred lives with his little finger. This is his creator, and that fact alone won't leave him, won't be pushed aside.

The Alchemist crosses the distance between them finally, wondering with each step if Rath will make some rush past him, if Rath will turn and run from him, if they will keep running from each other for forever. But the younger man does not—this time, he only presses further into the wall, makes himself smaller, and he lets the fury and the fright show through on a face that cannot truly be called his.

The Alchemist reaches his free hand and closes it over Rath's clenched fist, meeting only the barest of resistance as he separates the fingers and examines each one. The ring finger's nail is too short, broken behind the quick, and it looks painful but Rath says nothing, because what could this little amount pain be in comparison to so many other wounds, the ones that can be seen and the ones that cannot?

"Is this…" the Alchemist begins and the words catch in his throat. His mind wants to say what his mouth cannot, and suddenly it all seems ridiculous, horribly ridiculous that they should meet here, this way, and that they should be touching for the first time in… "Is this body serving you well?" he asks finally, and it was not what he wanted to say but _God_, it is something. Rath's eyes are wide, and for a moment he is nothing but a child again, nothing but the boy who walked so trustingly into a stranger's arms one snowy afternoon. His lips part and close, and Kharl is not the only one who cannot find the right words.

He inspects the false form before him: the blood from a scratch someone else has caused, a small red pockmark on the boy's collarbone that looks like a spider bite, an old scar on back of his left hand that looks like it once caused cruel pain. Rath is not patient while he notices these details, but the boy does not move either. He stands, breathing, and for a moment Kharl simply enjoys listening to the beating of that stolen heart, the rise and fall of breath from stolen lungs.

"It hurts," Rath says, and his voice is rage and Ruin and regret and reconciliation. Kharl knows immediately what he means; can imagine the force exerted by Rath's soul on a body that is not meant to bear such a burden. He can imagine the war beating in those veins. "It hurts."

"Come back to me." He does not mean to say it but it is said, and he waits on bated breath for the rejection that is to follow. He waits for the renewed fury that will give Rath just enough strength to push past him and disappear again.

"I won't!" But Rath will not look at him this time, and there is blood on the boy's lip from where his fangs have pierced the flesh. "You're a liar," he says, "you're a liar! You don't love me!" His voice is tremulous and young, and Kharl wonders why he is trying so hard to sound convincing. "You don't love me, you don't love me, you don't…" Kharl holds him because Rath cannot stand it anymore, cannot stand on his own. "You don't love me, you can't," the boy whispers, hisses, cries. _You're a liar!_

Kharl stays silent, because there aren't words strong enough to be the truth.

* * *

**Next up, Theme 16: Questioning**

_"Where is my mother?" he asks, in the steady and unavoidable voice that only children can wield._

_

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_**Note to Leeayre:** Muwahaha, what did happen to Garfakcy? How did Kharl end up in the Dragon Castle? Don't think that I'm not going to tell that story. It'll be here. And it'll make me very, very, very happy to write it. (I have been waiting to tell that story since I started writing DK fanfiction.) But you'll have to wait a long time... v.v 


	16. Somehow it Seems Colder Now

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_**

**Theme**: 16, Questioning  
**Characters**: Kharl, Ruin  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Awkwardness... and I poke fun at MPREG. XD  
**Need to Know Info**: You all should know Ruin by now...  
**Title Provider**: Field of Innocence (Evanescence)

_I Still Remember the Sun, Always Warm on My Back... Somehow it Seems Colder Now_

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"Where is my mother?" Ruin asks, in the steady and unavoidable voice that only children can wield. Kharl stills, the heavy book in his hands quickly forgotten. The golden light of the library's high windows picks at Ruin's dark hair, dying his hard crimson eyes a dull orange. There is a quiet solemnity to the down-curve of his delicate, pale lips. Kharl stares, taken aback and frightened. "Where is my mother?" the boy repeats, and something in the glint of his eyes says there can be no escape this time. 

"Ruin…" the Alchemist sighs deeply and wonders if he has put off answering for too long. He makes a move to invite the tiny child onto his knees as is their custom, but Ruin stands firm, fragile arms crossed, pout and determination flaring on his face. "You're," the lilac-haired man begins and then pauses, thinking over his words carefully. He knows they will be heavy, they will be unwanted, and they may cause pain. "You're special."

"Is she dead? Or did she leave us?" the little boy asks, and there is a detached briskness in his voice that unsettles Kharl—how can any child ask such a horrible thing so bluntly?

"No Ruin," his voice is bracing and tentative, "you're different than other demons. You don't have a mother." The boy blinks slowly, the words drifting over and over in his head.

"That's not possible," he says finally, confusion more than evident. "There has to be a mother and a father." Kharl curses himself again for waiting until now, when Ruin is clever enough to understand the way the world works.

"It's different in our case," he wonders at how strange that must sound, and also cruel, "you were not 'born'—you were _created_."

"Created," Ruin repeats, but he does not question, "by only you." The Alchemist nods because he's not sure what else to say. The boy fixes him with another level stare, and asks without the slightest shame, "did I grow inside you?" There is a moment of uncomfortable silence, while Kharl wonders if he should laugh or shudder.

"No," he answers finally, "I crafted your body with magic." Something in the boy's eyes dies little by little, and the Alchemist feels as if he has said something wrong.

"Then I'm not your son." Crimson eyes dare him to refute it.

"You are. We share the same blood."

"So do some of your other _creations_." It is a sharp retort, too harsh from such a small body.

"But you are different."

"Because you made me that way?" Kharl says nothing in reply because 'yes' and 'no' are both wrong choices.

"Ruin, do you understand what makes a mother a mother?" The boy does not know what answer is expected, and he stumbles over a few words while he thinks. "Love is what gives a mother her title, makes a child more than simply another small being. It is not the circumstances of your existence that make you my son—it is the depth with which I care for you that does."

The boy crosses the short distance between them to accept his father's embrace, but there is dissatisfaction drifting darkly in the air between them. Ruin wonders if his father will one day make a demon he likes more.

Kharl kisses the top his son's dark head and feels cold.

* * *

**Next up, Theme 17: Blood**

_It was no accident, but that is what he will say later when Garfakcy asks why his finger is bandaged._


	17. I've Made Mistakes My Ravenheart

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_**

**Theme**: 17, Blood  
**Characters**: Kharl  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Emo!Kharl  
**Need to Know Info**: None  
**Title Provider**: Ravenheart (Xandria)

_Once Loving Him, Now Hating Love, I've Made Mistakes My Ravenheart_

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In the end, though he would never say it, the knife did not slip. The sharp tip pierced his finger—a drop of blood welled there, dark and tremulous. For a moment, his lilac eyes watch it grow, filling in the minutiae of his fingertip and pooling outward, stopping only when the surface tension is strong enough to impede further progress. It was no accident, but that is what he will say later when Garfakcy asks why his finger is bandaged. It was no accident—but even now, just when the pain begins to trickle toward his mind, he swears it was.

He did not intend to make the cut, did not intend to wait on bated breath for the liquid to bubble through his skin. He did not intend to think of Rath, to think (and pause in wonder) that somewhere across the world another heart is beating, killing and replicating identical, microscopic cells. Somewhere across the world, maybe Rath is nursing wounds and looking at the same congealed dark blood.

He can smell it, heavy like fear and malice. He can taste it in the air, like a serpent can, even though it is only a tiny cut—and its bitter after-flavor should be iron, but his tongue tingles with regret. In the half-light, poisonous green moonlight that filters through the dusty stained-glass window, the drop glitters in a way that makes his stomach turn. He wonders if he can be mocking himself and not even know it.

He stands still long enough for the edges of the drop to dry, cracking as his skin moves almost invisibly. The Alchemist stands and drinks in the sickly moonlight, and listens to his heart beating. He listens to the rise and fall of the tide in his veins, and pretends.

He pretends for a moment that so many miles away, Rath is listening too. He pretends for a moment that their hearts still beat on the same count—but he knows that Rath is not Ruin and hope and dreams aren't anything but subconscious walls against loss. Rath is not thinking of him, of the blood they share, or their hearts that once held the same hope and happiness.

It wasn't an accident, but there is as much sadness as blood in the air now.

"It hurts," he says finally, and licks the drop away.

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**Next up, Theme 18: Rainbow**

_"It's a human saying," Garfakcy explains, and for a moment the thought that he is analyzing idiomatic expressions with a god-like being is disconcerting and amusing._


	18. 이 빗속에서 너 행복하도록

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**Theme**: 18, Rainbow  
**Characters**: Kharl, Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: None?  
**Title Provider**: Gentle Rain (Clazziquai)

이 빗속에서 너 행복하도록, I Wish…  
_In Order to Make You Happy, Amid this Rain that's Pouring Down, I Wish..._

* * *

The rain falls without warning, glinting in the sunlight and splitting the rays among each drop so that the air seems suddenly golden. The steady drip is hard against the castle roofs, echoing in the open-air hallways and dripping melodiously from every tree and shrub. It brings with it instantly the smell of wet earth, and where it strikes stone walkways, misty tendrils of steam rise and rip apart as drops fall through them. It is strange, but not overly so, and weather never was of much interest to the Alchemist. 

"_Are_? It's raining?" Garfakcy blinks, shifting the laundry basket more comfortably on his hip.

"Uh? Yes, it is." Kharl looks up from his notes with a disinterested gaze, watching the crystalline drops mark glittering trails from sky to earth.

"There weren't any clouds at all an hour ago." Looking as if he is intending to stay, the human boy drops his basket gently and swings open the heavy window with an intolerably loud grate of wood on stone. "The kitsune's taking a bride," he murmurs without even thinking about it, and something in the words catches Kharl's attention.

"Kitsune? What did you say about fox demons?" He peers over frayed parchment edges of his papers; the servant smiles, green eyes glittering half-sheepishly and half-superiorly.

"It's a human saying," Garfakcy explains, and for a moment, the thought that he is analyzing idiomatic expressions with a god-like being is disconcerting and amusing. "The fox is taking a bride. It's what you say when it rains on a sunny day." Kharl's lilac eyes are wide in confusion, blinking slowly. He unconsciously frets his bottom lip with a fang.

"That's just silly," the youkai replies, "no one wants to marry on a rainy day." Garfakcy stifles a laugh because it would just not be polite.

"Humans have a really strange idea of fox demons." He turns green eyes to the forest again, and cannot help but think that he once shared those beliefs. "They think all Kitsune are tricksters who love to stir up mischief. It would be just like a Nogitsune(1) to drench his bride."

"Wherever did they get that idea?" The Alchemist's tone is one of general disbelief and intrigue, and Garfakcy finds it more than a little irking that his lilac-haired master can take such a scientific interest in ningen.

"I don't know," the darker-haired boy mutters, and goes back to watching the rain fall gently. It is light enough that he does not need to be concerned for his flowers. Vaguely, he wonders if Kharl's mandrakes take well to water, and though guilt weighs heavily on him for it, he hopes they do not. "Oh, look, a rainbow."

Finally, as if it is required of him, the Alchemist joins him at the window, nose wrinkling against the thick smell of hot, wet earth. The arch glimmers over the trees, seven colored bands wavering as the rain continues to fall.

"Did you know that I see it differently than you do?" the lilac-haired demon murmurs.

"I didn't."

"Human eyes have distinct trouble differentiating light waves in the blue spectrum. The indigo that you can hardly see stands out quite vividly to me."

"Must be nice." It is a sarcastic reply; Kharl can't help but think there is some seriousness in it too. The smaller boy does not bother to look at his master. "You know what humans say about rainbows?" He knows the Alchemist does not, and wonders why he even bothers asking anymore.

"Does it have anything to do with fox demons?" The youkai's chuckle is roguish.

"No, it doesn't! Rainbows are supposed to be pathways between the realms of Heaven and the mortal world." The Alchemist's light eyes narrow with interest, making the colored lights only brighter. "I used to hear that if you could find the place where the rainbow touches the earth, you could ascend it and join the spirits."

"That's impossible." Kharl shakes his head softly, spider-web strands of hair dancing in the breeze of the action. "Rainbows are only light. They're caused by particle waves being broken into their relative colors when refracted through the prisms of the raindrops. Not a heavenly phenomenon, at all." He giggles faintly and his eyes close in evident amusement. "Maybe the Kitsune is going to Heaven for his wedding reception."

The boy shoots him a withering glare. "You never appreciate anything."

Kharl watches the rainbow fade, and agrees.

_Across the continent, a drenched fox bride curses her husband's sense of humor._

* * *

**Translation Notes:**  
(1) - _Nogitsune_: "Field Fox", wild foxes usually portrayed in Japanese mythology as malicious.

* * *

**Next up, Theme 19: Gray**

_Foreign and unwelcome, he plucks it free, and shakes the offending hair disparagingly._


	19. Where I'm Supposed to Be

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**Theme**: 19, Grey  
**Characters**: Kharl  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: None?  
**Title Provider**: Crystal Ball (Keane)

_Who is the Man I See, Where I'm Supposed to Be?_

* * *

It is not something he would normally have noticed, even at his most observant—but today is not just any day, and today he sees everything. He is afraid of what will happen if he does not. It was this day, more than a decade ago, that Ruin died, that blindness cost him everything. Today, he makes sure to open his eyes and _see_. 

The mirror that cannot lie stretches out in front of him, all cold glass and dark circles. His hair is more tussled than normal: one side is flat and crushed down from where he'd burrowed into the pillow. There are purple streaks beneath his eyes that he attributes to the date, and the sleepless nights that lead up to it each year. He has been grinding his teeth again in the night; the inside of his lip bears fresh cuts from his fangs. But this is not what catches and holds his attention—because among each uniform lilac hair in his bedraggled bangs, something glints off-colored and nearly invisible.

With a deft hand and crossed eyes he separates it from the other strands and inspects it. Though the light in the washroom is poor, he knows it is anything but purple. It is a solid, unyielding gray. For a moment, he can only stare as if it is some living creature, something not attached to his head at all. Foreign and unwelcome, he plucks it free, and shakes the offending hair disparagingly. It shines mockingly in the broken morning light.

He knows it is not from age—by all means, he is a very young demon; he knows youkai who still consider him a child. Garfakcy would undoubtedly tell him it is from stress, from taking on too many projects at once and working for days on end. Perhaps that's all there is to it, and it is only his own overenthusiasm working against him. But he can't imagine that being the truth, really. His mind is never in the projects he does, the magic is mechanical, the long hours weigh less than a feather would. It is not from overwork, he is sure, but he does not know what else it could be.

It could not have anything do with Rath, the Alchemist wants to believe. It surely has nothing to do with striving every day to find his place in the world and the war and liking neither side. It has nothing to do with remembering every sin he has committed and every thing he has lost. Inside his mind, each tragedy has its perfect place, every murder and every lie is neatly filed and silent. They are not pressing on him. They are not threatening to overflow. He winds the single gray hair around his finger. One time, two times, three lies, four times.

The tension strength of hair is stunning, he thinks, because he wants to drown the other thoughts. The strand cuts painfully into his skin, and he tightens it again, further, waiting to see if it will draw blood or cut clean through to bone. The pain is like a burn, burning he has come to love so much—because what can't be erased by flame? What scars can't be melted away, what tears can't be boiled off? What loyalty or love _can_ walk unscathed through the fire? He'd promised himself that there was nothing left inside: ash and nothing more, but maybe that was a lie too. There might still be something left inside him alive enough to burn with hope…

The strand snaps finally, falling off in pieces and leaving his flesh red and raw. Blood rushes back to his blue fingertip and his hand pounds sharply. He watches the shattered hair for a moment and worries. Maybe, just like that, he is stretching too far, tightening too much, increasing the pressure without letting anything go. Maybe one day he'll snap just like that silvery white thread—and all that will remain will be the raw severed shards of a man and a mind.

His sigh echoes softly in the half-lit washroom, and the dark circles under his eyes seem darker than before. _It's only overwork,_ he lies, and the ghost of the smile that tugs at his face seems wry and hollow.

Briefly, he wonders if a brain can be old inside a young skull. The thought makes him laugh, and even though the sound is quiet, it strikes him like a physical blow. _Garfakcy is right,_ he insists, _I should take a vacation._

Suddenly, being out of this dim castle and this young body and this tragic life seems like it would be a great relief.

* * *

**Next up, Theme 20: Vacation  
**

_"I am! I r-really am! I was all like 't-touch my f-flowers and I'll k-kill you!'"  
"Did you stutter like that when you said it?"

* * *

_


	20. Travel in Mind

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

* * *

_**

**Theme**: 20, Vacation  
**Characters**: Kharl, Aotsuki, Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: None (but Aotsuki is a little flamer so...)  
**Warnings**: Every warning in the book? Cursing, hints of slash (boyxboy) appreciation, _cliche_, retardedness, annoying OC, and the words "Red Light District"... Oh, and PMSing Garfakcy too. (God, I had so much fun writing this!)  
**Need to Know Info**: 青月の夜, Aotsuki Noyoru is a Cloaks original character, the second in a set of Dragon Fighters who sole purpose seems to be in making Avis Rara's life as chaotic as possible. Ao-chan is a Faerie from a forest in Glaciosa. He's shy and generally helpless, but has a beserker side. "Once on the battlefield, I saw him tear a demon apart... with his bare teeth!"  
**Title Provider**: Travel in Mind (See-Saw)

_Travel in Mind, Around the Whole World, Oh Have You Ever Seen-? _

* * *

Kharl rethought his entire plan the moment the city came into view. It was much too lively, much too _populated_… Whatever made him decide Draqueen would be a good place to relax, he most certainly could not remember. Nevertheless, going back to Arinas now would be more than wasteful, and at the very least, he owed himself a few hours freedom from Alchemy. 

Avis Rara sighed heavily, limp blond hair staying resolutely flat despite the decent breeze. The Dragon capital was gleaming and full of happy shouting and bustling human beings. In the distance, he saw the castle rising like the majestic ruler it stood for. It hurt almost, to think Rath was somewhere inside those walls, so close and so completely out of his reach.

He put aside those thoughts determinately, shaking his head as a forceful reminder that he was here to be someone else for the day. The human being named Avis Rara cared no more for Rath than he cared for ants in the road. Kharl took a larger-than-normal step, to avoid crushing a line of scurrying black insects.

Belatedly, he wondered if he should have chosen slightly less conspicuous clothing—rejoicing in the fact that, for once, his hair did not limit the scope of his color scheme, he'd chosen a rather fancy cloak set, dyed almost garnet. The hem and collar were embroidered with delicate gold swirling patterns, and he'd embellished with heavy golden earrings that dangled and flashed in the bright sunlight. With Avis Rara's naturally delicate features and milk white skin, he probably seemed a very commanding presence. The Alchemist giggled quietly to himself as he drew glances from all types of people. Did he look like some errant prince, a little lost on his way to the castle to promote diplomacy and peace? The truth couldn't have been any more opposite…

"Oi, you little bastard!"

"I-I'm so sorry, please I'll—"

"You're going to have to pay for all of them!"

"B-But I can't aff—" Kharl blinked light eyes and watched the argument with unveiled interest. A small young man –no, he wasn't as young as he looked– trembled next to a collapsed cart of apples. His bare arms were already brimming with fruit, and he looked like he desperately wanted to put them all back in their basket and run away with his tail between his legs. His appearance was arresting, if nothing else. Though Draqueen was stunningly diverse, Avis had yet to see anyone who looked quite like the stuttering boy. His skin was a dark nut brown, too dark to blend well with the paler faces of the Dragon capital, and his frame was decidedly too delicate. That straight, navy blue hair and those gray eyes did not match any other coloring the Alchemist had seen in the city—but that was all secondary to what really caught Kharl's attention.

The boy was brimming with the Power of Virtue. Even having his senses weakened by the ash magic disguise could not fail to block out that energy, and there was unmistakably Faerie blood in his veins.

"I'm really, r-really sorry… I d-don't have so much m-money…" The vendor remained stern, cursing loudly. The boy bent to pick up more apples, though the pile he already carried seemed ready to burst free of him at any moment.

"I'll pay for you." Avis Rara bent down to pick a bruised fruit off the ground.

- X – X – X-

Gray eyes darted swiftly from the ground to the owner of the kind voice, and heavy lashes lifted widely in surprise. The stranger was clothed in garments fit for the Dragon Lord, smile shining as brightly as his golden adornments. Blond hair, mussed just enough to look human, reflected the light softly, framing the slope of his pale cheeks. Sky-blue eyes glimmered with apparent amusement, and a pale hand closed the distance between them. _He looks like… an angel._ Embarrassed to have even thought something so silly, the younger boy began hastily stuffing more apples into his arms, if only to occupy his eyes. Unfortunately, while there were quite a few fruit on the ground, the task of picking them all up was not able to keep him busy for long—especially since the strange blond man started to pick up the fallen apples too.

"How much will all this be?" His voice was soft and pleasant to listen too, with a smoothing quality that did not seem entirely natural. The vendor snarled a price and the young man almost dropped all the apples again: it was ridiculously high, even for so much damage. There was no way… The stranger in red reached into his sleeve and withdrew a heavy bag of gold. "This will cover it, right?"

"Oh n-no! D-don't do that, d-don't…" He tried to stop the transaction, but his hands were quite full and his voice was much too quiet. "Y-you really shouldn't—" The stranger smiled again, disarming any argument he had been trying to make. Calmly, as if they had known each other years, the older man led him away, dumping the apples off on people walking by as he went.

"Why," he murmured in a voice that was less appealing than before, and quite a bit more interested, "is a Faerie stirring up trouble in a Draqueen market?"

"I-I wasn't! I d-didn't mean—" The stranger chuckled pleasantly in reply. "Uh… I… My name is A-Aotsuki Noyoru. W-What is your name?" It was too forward, and he regretted asking a moment after the words had escaped him.

"Avis Rara," the older man offered without hesitation, and Aotsuki repeated it in his mind several times. It was a strange name, one that did not quite fit the man beside him.

"T-Thank you very much for p-paying for me…"

"I do expect to be repaid." There was a mischievous note in the blond's voice now, and a happy smirk behind that. The younger man twitched—suddenly wandering off with an all-too-friendly stranger didn't seem like the wisest of decisions. "Do you know this city well?" The question came completely unexpected, and Aotsuki missed a step in surprise.

"I… I s-suppose so, R-Rara-san."

"If you will show me around, I will consider your debt paid." The idea of spending the day with such a... Aotsuki couldn't quite find the right words to describe the stranger, though a plethora of adjectives from 'mysterious' to 'overly generous' and 'abnormal' would have worked just fine.

"R-Rara-san wants me to be h-his guide?" Though the richly dressed man did not bother to look in his direction, Aotsuki could see a vivid smile.

"If you find my company objectionable, I suppose I'd manage on my own…"

"N-No! I m-meant…" The faerie sighed, giving up on his exuberant denial in favor of starting over. "What does Rara-san want to see?" The blond paused to think, lifting a delicate pale hand and tapping his lower lip.

"_What_ is here to see?" He muttered finally, light eyes narrowed and nose wrinkled in heavy thought.

"Well, there is…"

- X – X – X-

The Alchemist laughed freely, a clear and happy sound that stunned even him. The Faerie grinned shyly too, finishing his tale with a flourish that sent another gale of giggles through the disguised demon.

"You can't be serious…"

"I am! I r-really am! I was all like 'T-Touch my f-flowers and I'll k-kill you!'"

"Did you stutter like that when you said it?"

"S-Stop making fun of me Rara-san!" The blue-haired boy almost choked on his spoon as he flailed, but the Alchemist didn't halt his slow and steady devouring of apple-flavored ice cream.

"This is quite sweet. But it doesn't taste like cream at all."

"That type is made mainly from real fruit. H-Have you really never had it Rara-san?" The blond nodded slowly in answer, spoon bobbing comically in time. "You hadn't seen a pet shop before either… or a discothèque… or a Red-light District…" The Faerie's face flushed as scarlet as a tomato, remembering what _adventures_ he's saved his shockingly naïve new friend from. "Do you come from a faraway country?"

The Alchemist's face grew suddenly solemn, and a little wistful. "It's not like here at all. It's very… isolated." The navy-haired boy was about to say that sounded nice, but he wondered if that was not the reply Avis wanted.

"NO STOP!" a woman shouted across the street, and both the young men turned to see what was happening. A gang of boys had surrounded a jewelry saleswoman, tucking bracelets and wares into their pockets without a moment's hesitation.

"Stuff it lady. You don't need all this junk." She moved to jerk his hands away from her table, but was restrained none-too-kindly by his companions. Another two stood guard, glaring murder at anyone who stopped to stare at what was happening.

"She's being robbed," the disguised demon muttered and blinked in confusion, "and no one is helping her."

"T-Those guys look really strong. They'd probably b-beat up anyone who tried to h-help…" The gray-eyed Faerie fidgeted in his seat, wringing his napkin furiously. Light blue eyes regarded him slowly for a second, a little displeasure showing in them and stabbing the younger boy almost painfully. Then, with movements that seemed almost too fast for a human being, Avis Rara stood up, set his spoon down with a solid clatter, and vaulted over the low café fence.

"I would appreciate your immediate disappearance." Avis Rara's voice was low as he approached the thugs, dangerously so, and some edge of practiced violence and allure in it sent shivers down the Faerie's spine. _What is this feeling… like demon energy…_ Navy blue hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

"You would appreciate what?" The leader straightened to his full height, two inches taller than Kharl's assumed form, and smirked coldly. "Na, look at this pretty boy! You think you can stop me? What are you going to do, smother me with that cloak of yours?" The Alchemist scowled, stiffening. At his sides, claws grew and were hidden again quickly.

"So then asking you politely to desist would be pointless?" He smiled a falsely bright grin and blinked slowly.

"He's screwing with us," one of the boys hissed, brown eyes narrowing in unconcealed rage.

"Just turn around, go back to your pansy over there," the Faerie squawked indignantly from across the street, "and mind your own damn business… before I make it so you can't even mind that."

"Forgive me, I don't feel like leaving just yet." Kharl took a purposefully intimidating step forward, crossing pale arms defiantly.

"Bastard!" The boy lunged.

Kharl anticipated the blade before it was even unsheathed and waited almost patiently for a strike—that never came. A nut brown fist shattered the thug's face.

The tall thief's body slammed into the ground with a sickening smack, and blood bloomed from a clearly broken nose. He did not get up. There was a collective gasp, and then all the hoodlums' eyes landed firmly on Aotsuki.

"Get him!" There was a flurry of fists and feet and Kharl stepped back warily. There had been something distinctly different about the Faerie, who had just struck a human being: his gray eyes had been hard as stone, his normally soft demeanor had been darkened by the heady desire to _damage_… The blond false-human watched as what had been a common theft became an all out street brawl—and then he watched as Aotsuki caused serious bodily harm to every single one of the thieves. Looking at the Faerie boy's strangely sharp and brutal attacks, Kharl almost pitied the thugs. There was a devilish smile on the navy-haired boy's face, and his steel eyes danced with violence.

The last thief fell, leaving the stiffened gray-eyed victor and a frightened audience of bystanders in silence. For a moment, the smaller boy simply stood there, panting heavily and smirking, and then all fire seeped out of his stance. He lifted two bloody hands to his cheeks.

"O-Oh my God, w-what have I done?!"

- X – X – X-

"I-I only wanted to p-protect Rara-san… It's a-always this way…"

"This happens often?"

"N-No! I mean y-yes, but…" the Faerie stuttered uncontrollably, allowing the blond to bandage his hand, where he'd split two of his knuckles. He hung his head finally; a noise that sounded very much like a dejected whimper wormed its way free. "T-This is why I left the forest… Faeries don't feel b-bloodlust!"

"The Water Dragon Knight has a fairly excitable temper too, from what I've heard," Kharl smiled gently.

"Lord R-Rune is…" The Alchemist only half listened as Aotsuki rambled on about the wonders of his Faerie Prince, which could have been easily summed up by something simple like: 'I'm not worthy of kissing the ground he walks on!'

"B-But I did think that… I thought, maybe I could join the Dragon Tribe too! I could be a Dragon Fighter and help protect Lord Rune!"

"So why weren't you in the castle instead of out here, knocking over apple carts in the city?"

"I-I…" His deep brown cheeks colored quickly and his voice crawled out as an embarrassed whisper, "when I got here, and I saw how…"

"Majestic," Kharl supplied, unable to keep the grin off his face.

"Y-Yes! How majestic the c-castle was… I g-got scared and…"

"Gave up." The navy blue-haired boy sighed heavily in reply, dropping his head into his crossed arms.

"Why are you so afraid of other people? With the… uh, skill… you just exhibited, you would certainly do well among the Dragon Fighters." Kharl settled back into his chair.

"But what if—" Aotsuki began, losing his voice when a cold expression swept across Avis's face.

"I used to think that way too. 'But what if I fail', or 'but what if I make a mistake'… But you can't spend every day rethinking your choices. We may make mistakes if we rush in. But I think it's better," and Avis's smile was wavering and wan, "to at least try. If I'd never tried, I'd be even more miserable." There was a seriousness in his words that frightened Aotsuki, and there was a deep sadness in his light-blue eyes that hurt to look at.

- X – X – X-

The sunset struck him softly, setting the red and gold of his outfit aflame. "I'm sorry," the blond murmured after a moment, and stood. "I have to go. My servant doesn't know I left, and he's going to be quite furious with me."

"A-Ah, Rara-san!" The boy watched his new acquaintance take a few backward steps, "You're leaving?! W-Wait…"

"I really must go." A sudden image of Garfakcy's vicious glare sent chills down the Alchemist's spine.

"W-will I ever see y-you again?" The Faerie determinately avoided thinking about how that sounded. Avis offered him a hollow grin.

"Probably not." And then he was gone, just as swiftly as he had come.

"Sayonara, Rara-san." For a long time, the blue-haired boy sat still at their café table. _If I'd never tried, I'd be even more miserable. _He tossed down his napkin suddenly and ran toward the golden castle, shining in the sunset.

- X – X – X-

"MASTER KHARL, WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?!"

"Maa Garfakcy, I was taking a vacation." The Alchemist grinned brightly, enjoying the feeling of being back in his own body.

"What?!" The maid's voice was scalding enough to burn ice cubes.

"You said I should take a break, so I did." The youkai knew enough to start running then, and the human came charging after, brandishing his dripping mop like a sword. "It was quite relaxing! Avis Rara had a lovely day!"

"What about _my_ vacation?!"

* * *

**Next up, Theme 21: Fortitude**

_"I'm going to numb you to stop the pain," Avis explains.  
"If only you could." The Dragon laughs once, wry and cold._


	21. Not Standing Alone

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 21, Fortitude  
**Characters**: Avis, Kaistern  
**Pairing**: If you looked at it with a microscope, it might be Kaistern/Kharl (...Yummy. XD)  
**Warnings**: Medical randomness and too much sentimentality  
**Need to Know Info**: None  
**Title Provider**: Not Standing Alone (Alexz Johnson)

_Not Standing Alone, Not Standing Around, While They Sit There and Wait Until I Lose My Ground _

_

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_

_Fortitude: mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation._

The man's pale skin is strangely warm when it should be quite cold. Yes, he had just taken off his coat, but the room is frigid, and the air outside is not much warmer. By all means, goosebumps should have been rising already over his shoulders and arms. He stays warm, despite the cold hands that dart carefully over his skin. Avis Rara's delicate hands are perpetually frozen, whether they are inside thick gloves or not—today they are bare, and that makes the touch only more shocking. It is not something the doctor likes, but it is something he cannot change. The albino man shivers where ice-white fingers trace his festering wound.

"You should have gotten this treated earlier," the doctor murmurs slowly, still not trusting his full voice around this man. There is always a chance that somehow, some part of the hatred he feels will spill through his lips.

"It doesn't matter," Kaistern dismisses him, and there is note of disinterest in that voice that stirs something inside Avis.

"You could die from an infection like this." The doctor tries his hardest to force concern into his words but fails, and all that comes across with them is cruel fact.

"I won't die yet," the white-haired Dragon says, "not until…" He does not finish, and he does not flinch when the blond doctor presses gingerly on the swollen cut. He does not need to finish, because Kharl can do it for him. _Not until Rath returns._ That is what they are all waiting for in the end, isn't it? Waiting to see red eyes and a warm smile, and maybe he'll come back nursing injuries from another demon hunt, and maybe Avis will treat him, and maybe everything will be all right. And maybe it won't.

"He'll come home to us soon." But there is no conviction in Avis's half smile, and Kaistern would not believe even if there was.

"I know he will," the albino answers; his eyes betray the lie. For a moment, Avis is not sure if he should feel camaraderie or dislike. He settles for something in between, some sort of apathy, because he _understands_ the man sitting on his table, and cannot stand that. The doctor's hands flutter like fledgling birds, and for a moment, he feels as if they don't belong to him at all. The long pale fingers pull chemicals from his cabinets—his mind doesn't know whether they are the right ones, but his hands seem to.

"I'm going to numb you to stop the pain."

"If only you could." The Dragon laughs once, wry and cruel, and he is not thinking of cuts or infections, but deeper scars that Avis knows too well and cannot heal. The blond doctor applies the gel quickly and waits as it turns a sickly orange, a sign that the entire drug has gone into the man's bloodstream. With careful pinches, he lances the swollen green laceration and extracts the pus. It is a deep cut, almost to the bone, and the Alchemist cannot help but wonder who exactly gave it to him. He does not bother to ask.

With careful, deft fingers, he stitches the wound closed and thinks. It would be so easy to tear this man to shreds right now. The creature is fragile, weak, ruled by his heart… but he was the one who halted Kharl that cold morning in the mountains. He was the one who held Rath so close and sounded so desperate. For a moment, Avis wonders which of them is truly weaker—and the answer turns bitter on his tongue.

"Finished," he murmurs, and pats the wound once, though he knows the man can't feel it. Swiftly, the albino pulls his shirt back on; he is the only one in this castle who doesn't seem fond of layers and drapes. With a quiet "thank you" that also serves as a "good-bye", the Blue Dragon Officer crosses the room. Before he can leave the doorway, the doctor calls out slowly to him.

"I think… we are holding up well." It is a lie, and they both know it: without Rath, this castle is crumbling face by face.

Kharl and Kaistern are barely standing.

The Blue Dragon Officer gives him one wan smile, and is gone.

* * *

**Next up: Theme 22, Mother Nature  
**_"I'm just too curious for my own good," Avis chuckles. The Faerie smiles in return, suddenly as open and inviting as every member of his species.  
"Are you interested in Faeries, Rara-sensei?"_


	22. かぜのはな

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 22, Mother Nature  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rune  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Science, "the moral of the story is"...  
**Need to Know Info**: Human DNA differs from a Banana's DNA by only six percent. Did you know that? Kharl learned his flowers from Garfakcy... 'cause I said so?  
**Title Provider**: Kaze no Hana (Mahou Tsukai)

かぜのはなよさあひらくのよさよならゆきたちよ  
_Flower in the Wind, Come Now, Open Up… Bid Good-bye to the Snow._

* * *

Kharl supposes that, in the end, it was really only an accident that he ran into the Water Dragon Knight that day. Some part of him wants to say it was fate, but there was really no other path to take, and no one else would have been so deep in the gardens. And the doctor ends up being the only one shocked—because the Faerie is deep in meditation and wouldn't have stirred had a demon begun terrorizing the castle and screeching at the top of its lungs. For a moment, Avis deliberates between walking on as if they'd never crossed paths, and stopping to observe the other creature. Curiosity wins, as always, and he settles himself on a flat rock to _watch_. 

At first, it seems as there is nothing interesting about the pale blond, but the doctor's eyes adjust slowly, lilac spilling into blue like the crashing tide of an ocean. He can see the quiet flares of restrained energy, the soft aqua-green and white that belongs to Faeries uniquely; he can see the way the foliage nearest to the boy seems almost alive and shines with artificial life. He wonders briefly why the Knight doesn't sell himself more as a healer—with as many Faeries as there are currently residing in the Dragon castle, they could have quite a medical staff. Lykouleon is wasting his assets, the Alchemist decides, and looking at the soft smile on the Faerie Prince's face, he knows it is true. There's something almost sacrilegiously wrong about sending this boy into battle, demon within or not. Faeries and murder are two ideas that he doesn't want to juxtapose in his mind anymore.

When the boy begins to stir, Avis thinks about continuing on, but something makes him stay, and pale blue eyes open blearily and accidentally find his own.

"A-Ah, Rara-sensei?" There is an obvious note of discomfort in his voice that is only natural: it is not often that one wakes to being watched.

"Pardon me," the doctor offers his disarming smile, "I was on a walk, and I couldn't help but notice your magic. I'm just too curious for my own good." The Faerie smiles in return, suddenly as open and inviting as every member of his species.

"Are you interested in Faeries, Rara-sensei?" There is an undercurrent of sadness and anger following the words. The doctor chooses his answer carefully.

"I'm interested in all living creatures—I want to come to understand how so many sentient species: Dragons, Faeries, Humans and even Demons, can exist in this world and seem so completely different."

"What do you mean?" The Faerie straightens his legs with only a little wince.

"Well, take yourself for example. You were a Faerie long before you were a Dragon Knight, correct?" The boy's long blond hair falls around him has he nods in answer. "But now you could not say you're a full-blooded Faerie or a full-blooded Dragon. Even though you probably don't think about it often, accepting Dragon magic means accepting Dragon blood, and the chemical composition of the blood you bear by birthright is _not_ the same as the blood you inherited when you awoke Kahaku." The Faerie nods again slowly, taking in each word with deliberation.

"Still, the two bloods can easily be mixed—did you know that Dragons and Faeries only differ in base DNA by around two percent? That fact is also true for Humans and Dragons, though there is a slightly larger gap. In both yourself and the Earth Knight, the two sets of genetic code were simply assimilated. Isn't it intriguing that creatures as seemingly different as Humans and Dragons are, at their very simplest, the same?"

The Faerie stares at him for a long moment, and then, in a voice that is half unsure and half curious, he murmurs, "Rara-sensei, you didn't mention Youkai at all." Avis wonders if his false blue eyes are narrowed in frustration, or cold with indifference.

"Because Youkai do not fit that pattern. Unlike Faeries or Humans, the last percentages of Demon and Dragon DNA are almost complete opposites. In truth," the Alchemist waves a general hand at a fountain full of fluttering, yellow birds, "a demon's DNA would be closer to those birds' than to any human's, no matter how well they hide the attributes of their species." He shakes a weary head, crushing a sigh before it can escape. "Youkai are essentially animals—animals who have evolved to walk, to talk, and to mimic human-like emotion."

"That seems like a very cruel analysis."

"In the end, all analysis is." Rune runs his hands together in answer, noting what Kharl does not feel—that the day is cool and breezy and most people would be cold. "It makes one pity the Fire Knight."

"Pity Rath…" the Faerie repeats slowly, and Kharl wonders if the idea is new to him or if he has just never heard those words before. "He wouldn't want anyone to."

"Lord Rath seems like a very private person. He would probably never talk to anyone about pain—but I imagine he must suffer very seriously. Demon blood is incompatible with Dragon blood in every aspect. To live with both… would be like having a dilapidating disease. The fact that Lord Rath manages to keep his body functioning everyday is amazing." He runs a pale cold finger along his lower lip, testing the feel of the words, "In fact, it's more than amazing—because, in all actuality, it _should_ be impossible. Giving a Demon Dragon's blood is like infusing a street dog with Light and expecting it to survive. The only outcome of blending the two bloods is, ultimately, death."

"Rath isn't going to die." The sharp, unshakable conviction in the Faerie's voice warms something in Avis.

"I should hope not." But Kharl knows that his smile is false, and that Rath, who has not returned from Emphaza, is already dead. For a long moment, they both are silent, and Kharl wishes he could read the Prince's mind without fear of being caught.

"You know a lot about demons, don't you Rara-sensei?" the boy says finally, a little hesitant to word his opinion in that manner. "Do you think… there is a way to save Rath?" Avis shakes his head gently because he does not trust his voice—of course he knows how to save Rath. Purge the Dragon's blood and restore what was lost. Somehow he does not think that is the answer Rune wants to hear. "I'm sorry," the boy mutters finally, pulling up his legs and resting his chin on his knees, "I'm so helpless when it comes to Rath. I can't understand him at all."

With deft hands, Kharl picks the top off of a weed growing out from under the rock he is sitting on. Rune's downcast eyes spark for a moment as if he will scold the larger man for killing plants, but the look dies in the next second.

"You can use your magic to bloom flowers, can't you?" The doctor stares at him curiously, but there is a strange note of prior knowledge in the look.

"Yes, but that's just a weed. It wouldn't have flowers for me to bloom."

"Try anyway, please," Avis insists, turning the weed around between his pale fingertips.

Though he is certain it will be of no avail, the Faerie reaches out delicate hands and runs healing magic into the weed. The break point seals itself off; the energy gently fills each pore of the plant and begins rejuvenation. It is to Rune's amazement that tiny, purple flowers unfurl at the top of the weed's stem.

"I don't understand! I've never seen—"

"_Myosotis sylvatica_," there is a subtle and sad sort of amusement on the doctor's face, "Forget-Me-Not. In dry conditions like this, the plant blooms only under intense outside stress. You'd never be able to tell it from a weed at first glance."

"That plants grows in Faerie Forest…" It's almost a justification; Rune looks a bit embarrassed but vaguely happy too. "I would have known it if I'd looked closer."

"I suppose," the doctor smiles, "_that_ applies to everything in nature—to Rath, to Demons, to Faeries—there is always something to be learned. There is always some secret to unravel, some new way to look at that which you have never grasped before..."

He stands, and the princes' blue eyes follow the movement. "Maybe by learning all that we can, by doing what we thought impossible, by changing our own baser natures, we can begin to _understand_."

His voice is soft with some emotion the Faerie cannot place. "Mother Nature did not make all creatures equal, but I hope that knowledge might." The doctor flickers out into the garden with a silent whisper of white cloth.

"Forget-Me-Not…" The unexpected purple blossoms look fragile and fleeting in the palm of his hand.

* * *

**Theme 23: Cat  
**_The blow fails, falls like a gentle touch: fingers tracing one white cheek, one ivory eyelid, one eye as distant as Heaven, as inviting as Hell._  
**  
**


	23. Wake Up Slowly

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar _

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_**

**Theme**: 23, Cat  
**Characters**: Kharl, Gil  
**Pairing**: Not-entirely-subtle Kharl/Gil.   
**Warnings**: Purring and poison? POV is purposefully vague in places.  
**Need to Know Info**: Updating a day early since I won't get the chance to update tomorrow.  
**Title Provider**: Wake Up #37 (King Black Acid)

_Wake Up Slowly Now, You're Dreaming.  
This is the Good Life... Well, it's Better than Your Future._

* * *

He is trembling visibly; wracking tremors slide from his shoulders to his feet, making him seem smaller and fragile.

"Don't be afraid," the angel says, and the dim light of the room seems to steal away the words as soon as they cross his lips—or maybe they were never said at all. They are a promise, and a lie.

He whimpers in answer: a guttural, broken plea that might be words and might just be desperation. A single golden eye blinks impossibly slowly, lashes falling like the guillotine, and he cannot _see_. There is an ash-like tint to his iris, there is a familiar confusion in that slit and dilated pupil. Poison runs serpent-like through his veins, pounding in his demon blood, weakening every muscle in his body. He struggles for a moment (though he knows it is futile) to strike the angel, the monster. His clawed hand seems an impossible weight to lift—the blow fails, falls like a gentle touch, fingers tracing one white cheek, one ivory eyelid, one eye as distant as Heaven, as inviting as Hell.

The favor is returned hesitantly; behind the frozen hand that runs the length of his scar and knots in his hair there is no malice. There is no malice in the touch, and that is more frightening than any attack. He shivers again, feeling the press of delicate material against the naked V of his collar. It is finer cloth than he has ever felt, but it is suffocating, alluring, cruel, and white: as pure white as falling snow, as cold. His vision is clouded by the ash that keeps his body limp, but he can still feel the brittle smile and the broken heart. He does not understand, is afraid to try.

A moment ago, he almost remembers, he was monster, a cat. He had tried to rip the other man apart—had not even drawn blood. He had fallen again. He had been taken in again by welcome arms and that infuriating face, those empty smiling eyes. _Ssh_, the angel had murmured into his feline ear while the poison ran its course, _it's all right_. Those ice-cold, impossibly fragile hands buried in russet fur and remained there, inescapable, another cage. His cloudy mind focuses enough to wonder if he is human now or some horrible mix of the two: half-furred, half-broken.

"I only wanted you to love me," the angel whispers in his ear, and that tremulous voice is broken like a mirror, still reflecting everything on the outside and nothing from within. He shivers again, and is not sure if it is because of the cold or because there is something too cruel and too tragic here for him to understand. "Why do you hate me?" An alabaster hand dances the length of his jaw, and down his neck, and the touch burns. Something forcibly flutters inside his chest, and the sound that comes from him seems almost unreal. The purr is quiet, and uncontrollable; Gil hates the noise and cannot stop it. Cat and mouse games play back and forth and they both tremble with regret.

"I'm not… an animal," he whispers.

The angel's cloak swallows his words and dances, cold and white, across his lips.

* * *

**Theme 24: No Time  
**

_"Alfeegi-sama," the blond rubbed his temple slowly, "I understood that you were here to oversee this operation. The last time I checked, the word _see_ implies using your eyes, not your mouth."_  



	24. Ultra Relaxed

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar **

**_

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_**

**Theme**: 24, No Time  
**Characters**: Kharl, Alfeegi, Ruwalk, Chi, Aotsuki, Hana (he's a new character, but I'll introduce him later!)  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Too many capitals and Chi is always irritating. XD  
**Need to Know Info**: Um... none?  
**Title Provider**: Ultra Relax (Kodomo no Omoucha)

_I'm Ultra Relaxed: Gracefully, Unbeatedly Relaxed! _

* * *

Though Kharl was a notorious liar, there were some things he was generally willing to admit to: lack of patience being quite high on that list. Of course, he could wait endlessly and execute plans at the precise moment without flaw, but when it came to dealing with particularly grating persons, all tolerance tended to fly out the window. 

"Rara-sensei, attend to your patients faster!"

"Alfeegi-sama, I am attending as _quickly_ as I can." Lykouleon deserved death, the Alchemist moaned to himself as he ran an alcohol-dowsed pad over another whining Dragon Fighter's arm. They were going into war to be ruthlessly slaughtered by demons—did the army really _all_ need Chicken Pox inoculations? At the same time?!

"You've been with that patient for three minutes and twenty-si—twenty seven seconds now!" Lykouleon didn't deserve death, the youkai doctor retracted his previous thought; he deserved to be locked in a room with the White Officer and an ever-lasting mountain of finance reports. Avis held in a cackle barely, only because he didn't want to be scolded by the fuming teal-haired Dragon for 'wasting time with laughter'.

"It's not _my_ fault," the doctor hissed pleasantly, "that the alcohol isn't taking the dirt off!" The White Dragon Officer's copper eyes narrowed with distrust, and with completely unsterilized hands, he snatched the cotton ball from Avis and began to scrub viciously, much to the Dragon Fighter's chagrin. "You know, Alfeegi-sama," the blond interjected, "the point is to clean the skin, not remove it." Nevertheless, Alfeegi's scouring proved successful in eradicating the dirt (only in that it had lifted off the first two layers of flesh). With deft hands, Avis administered the drug and ushered the weeping Fighter away.

"This is ridiculous! A slow doctor, an inordinate amount of supplies… Just how much did we pay for all this anyway?! Ruwalk should be dealing with this, not me! I don't have time to sit around and watch a bunch of immature little—"

"Alfeegi-sama," the blond rubbed his temple slowly, "I understood that you were here to oversee the operation. The last time I checked, the word _see_ implies using your eyes, not your mouth."

"You… You!" The White Officer was so affronted he could not even find proper words. Thanking God, Avis hurried away to another row of Dragon Fighters waiting to be vaccinated.

"NOOOOOO, IT CAN'T BE!"

Avis spared the howling soldier a few seats away less than a glance. "_Where_ are the scantily-clad nurses with lollipops?!" The red-headed swordsman was silenced by a stern-looking blond and a trembling grey-eyed Faerie. Sighing, Avis stepped up to his least favorite Fighters' unit. "Oh, hi Rara-sensei!" the exuberant blue-eyed boy chirped. "Would you believe this?! Not even one cute nurseeee…" He offered his arm to the doctor without complaint, but a puppy-pout clouded his bright eyes. As Avis discarded the syringe, the Fighter looked up at him hopefully. "Could I still have a lollipop?"

"No sugar," the boy's blond partner growled, and his statement was accompanied by the other, navy-blue haired, boy's frantic head shaking. Feeling particularly spiteful, Avis handed the red-head an orange candy and grinned as he continued down the line. At roughly the same time, Alfeegi recovered from being snubbed and stalked after Avis with Hellfire brimming in his eyes.

"I'll have you know that I am your superior and—"

"You pay my salary, yes, you've mentioned that before."

"Rara, I'm going to have to tell the Lord about this! We don't tolerate disrespect here!"

"I'm terrified," the blond muttered. The teal-haired man looked utterly scandalized for a bare two seconds, and then his face flushed an unhealthy red, his brow lowered viciously, and his hands curled fists at his stiff sides.

"Are you… mocking me?!"

Avis paused for thought. Yes, it was quite entertaining to see the shorter man puff-up like a cornered cat, but the Dragon was also prone to violence and—

"I'VE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF YOUR IMPERTINENT BEHAVIOR! THERE ARE FAR MORE IMPORTANT THINGS THAT I COULD BE DOING. BALANCING THE CASTLE FINANCES IS CONSTANT BATTLE! ARE YOU AWARE THAT—" Avis was tempted to cover his delicate ears with his hands, but continued to work through the dwindling ranks of Dragon Fighters, in hopes of finishing (and leaving) as quickly as possible. "DON'T IGNORE ME!" The Dragon's voice raised another decibel, and Avis swore any second now, his ear drums were going to burst. As if he didn't need to breathe at all, the teal-haired man continued his tirade, picking up steam and adding wild gestures of rage as his words grew louder and faster and faster.

"AND WE WOULDN'T EVEN NEED THIS STUPID VACCINATION IF DEMONS WEREN'T SO DIRTY!" Avis twitched, smile faltering for the barest of moments. "I mean they're positively filthy! AND COMPLETELY—" the White Dragon Officer continued to rant, unaware of how deep of a hole he was digging "—ERADICATION! Why are you working so slowly Rara?!" It was one straw too many.

With swift and deliberate movements, Avis chose a smaller syringe from his bag, spun on his heel, and plunged it into the Dragon's flailing arm. For a moment, Alfeegi hissed in shock, but then he blinked once, slowly, and all the fire drained out of him. He wavered on his feet, smiled pleasantly, and observed, "you… have very good aim."

The copper-eyed man waved a limp hand recklessly, and then meandered, with unsure steps, back toward the castle, overseer duties quite forgotten. A whistled tune drifted back to the doctor's still ringing ears.

"Now," Avis smiled at the last few Dragon Fighters happily, "isn't this so much better?"

- X - X - X -

"Rara-sensei, here you are!" Saffron Officer Ruwalk crossed the lawn quickly, taking a place beside Avis on the garden bench without asking. "I've been looking for you."

"I've been taking a bit of a rest after this morning." The Dragon cringed and nodded in reply.

"It was a lot of work for just two—speaking of that, I was wondering if you've taken a serious look at Alfeegi today."

"Whatever do you mean?" The innocent-look in Avis's eyes was completely fabricated, and he did not add much effort to make it seem real.

"He was acting really strange when I ran across him a while ago. He _smiled_ at me, and said 'hello'."

"He doesn't say hello to you?"

"...He doesn't when he knows I haven't turned in my reports," the brunet muttered sheepishly. "He was almost skipping, Rara-sensei! I thought he might have been out in the sun for too long—he actually let Lykouleon walk past without yelling at him for anything. The Lord almost had heart attack when Alfeegi remarked that it was 'a lovely day!' I just had this strange feeling that you might know what happened to him."

"It was only a _little_ anesthetic," the doctor grinned cheekily. "It'll wear off soon enough. In fact," he looked up at the sun, a good ways toward the horizon, "any second no—"

"RUWALK! RARA! WHAT IN THE LORD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING?! THERE'S NO TIME FOR A BREAK!"

The Saffron Officer took off like a fox with a hound on his tail.

* * *

**Theme 25: Trouble Lurking**

_The Fire Dragon bates his beaded wings in the sunlight, casting a glow like drying blood over all their faces; over Rath, who smiles and who dies as he stands before them. _


	25. Ignorant to All the Symbols

** + Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +**  
**Sarehptar **

**_

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**Theme**: 25, Trouble Lurking  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath, Raseleane, Cesia is mentioned  
**Pairing**: Rath/Cesia if you look at it with a microscope  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: None  
**Title Provider**: Wasteland (10 Years)

_ Turn and Tremble, be Judgmental, Ignorant to All the Symbols_

* * *

He feels the power all throughout him, from the tips of his booted toes to the strands of his limp blond hair. It runs like liquid but is so much warmer, and in all his veins at once, fire and ash pulse almost painfully. It is so completely _Rath_ that he almost falls where he stands. And he is the not the only one stunned. There is one collective stilling; every set of eyes in their crumbling castle closes, each set of lungs takes a shaking breath. He hears the rush before he is ready to move, but he joins them without questioning his own actions.

_Lord Rath…Lord Rath…_ It is endlessly repeated in somber whispers, and as he follows the maids and fighters, it starts to sound almost like a mantra. It sounds like a plea, and sounds like a prayer. The Fire Dragon bates his beaded wings in the sunlight, casting a glow like drying blood over all their faces; over Rath, who smiles and who dies as he stands before them. In the end, it is Raseleane who approaches him, not Cesia. The wind demon seems almost frightened, almost ashamed, and when the Dragon prince's garnet irises meet her own gold, she is the first to turn away.

The Dragon Queen is infinitely gentle and infinitely distant with him, as if she is a clumsy fool approaching a flighty deer. Rath does not sneer, but Kharl knows that her delicate treatment infuriates him more than anything.

"Rath," she begs and scolds, "why didn't you treat your injuries?" He is covered in minute scratches, red lines chasing each other over the pale skin that seems paler in comparison to his black clothing. He says nothing, doesn't even bother looking at her.

"Someone go get—ah, Rara-sensei, you're here." The gentle blue-eyed queen tries to smile for him, but it is false and faltering and he can't bear to return it.

"Mi'lady?" He bows gently, taking the shaking hand she offers more to reassure himself than anyone.

"Please take Rath and care to his wounds." Her voice betrays none of the helplessness that roils in her eyes, and none of the fear, a fear she cannot even explain, that is unfurling inside her.

"I _don't_ need a doctor," the black-haired Knight snarls, and there is an undercurrent of destruction and death in his tone. Raseleane moves to chide him, but the words stick in her throat, and it must be the look in her eyes alone that changes Rath's mind. His eyes burn with barely suppressed but cold fury, and he laughs. He laughs cruelly, too loud for the silence of the moment and too darkly to be taken well. Even the smile on his face is mocking, and something just seems wrong about it all.

Without a word, he falls in behind the doctor, taking slow, deliberate steps that click on the stone walkway and echo uncomfortably. Kharl trembles and cannot stop himself. They can both feel Raseleane's eyes on their backs, and something about the concern in those blue depths is almost painful. And then they are back within the thick marble walls of the castle, ignoring the spun-gold tapestries that rustle in their passing. It is only when they have turned down a closed corridor, far from the Dragon Queen's quiet gaze, that Rath snaps to a stop and refuses to take a step farther.

"I don't need you," he hisses, and the malice and the sheer condescendence in the words is frightening. That is not Rath's voice. When Avis turns to meet the narrowed garnet eyes, his heart presses hard against his throat—because the glittering intelligence and self-assurance in them does not belong to his son. The utter disregard, the biased hatred and the lust are feelings foreign to both of them, and he knows (knew from the very first moment and refused to believe!) that the creature before him is a hollow shell, the puppet of a power such a young boy could never hope to stand against. For a moment, Kharl longs to close the distance between him, to rip at that body until he's deep enough to tear the monster out. He stands still, smiles sheepishly, and lets the remnants of Rath vanish into the depths of the castle.

In his wake, the barest of spiritual traces worms beneath the Alchemist's skin, and though he tries so hard to ignore it, the lurking, dark pressure of the Demon Lord leaks into his mind.

"_I don't need you,"_ the voice says again in the echoing corridor.

_Oh God Rath, you_ do!

* * *

**Theme 26: Tears  
**_ "I'm a fool," she murmurs, but her roseate eyes echo different words. _


	26. No Need for Words

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar **

**_

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_**

**Theme**: 26, Tears  
**Characters**: Kharl, Star Princess  
**Pairing**: Kharl/Star Princess  
**Warnings**: Ermm... Probably the most scandalous thing I've ever written for the DK fandom.  
**Need to Know Info**: Could connect to Cloaks if Cloaks was a dark-romance story...  
**Title Provider**: Midnight (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

_No Need for Words, for in the Dark all Words have Long since Lost Their Meaning...  
_

* * *

And she gives him a smile then—a shaking, hollow smile that hurts more than anything else. 

"I'm a fool," she murmurs, but her roseate eyes echo different words, and long pale lashes rise and fall like the sun.

"Yes," he answers; there is no spite in it. "We both are." His eyes that are wan as the moon struggle to be detached but shine with desperation. There is an infinite distance between them, two steps that seem so much farther. There is a _world_ between them, and neither one moves to cross the space.

She trembles for a moment, and then wraps ivory and white-clothed arms around herself, a mockery of other hands and other hopes her eyes can say but her mouth cannot.

"I'm a fool," she repeats, whispers, won't meet his gaze because they both know exactly what those words mean—and they have nothing to do with magic, mistakes, or Dragons. "So… So…" Her throat constricts, the words refuse to move from where they sit, poisonous, on her lips. The scent of salt and regret weighs heavily in the dim light of the room, and impossibly slowly, crystal liquid pools and falls down her smiling face.

"My fiancé." For an eternity, that is all she says, pale skin and pale eyes glistening in the candlelight and the dark. For a moment, he wonders how painful it must be, to suffer two hearts breaking at once. "I can't." Yet there is no strength in her insistence, and it sounds so much like surrender.

The words leave an acidic taste in his mouth—they seem like something solid. They are a boundary; they are a weakness. "I can't..." she whispers, but it is her white boots that cross the distance finally, and it is her hands that brush against his, and it is her eyes that meet lilac and say what she really means.

And when he pulls her closer, close enough that he can feel the warmth and she can feel the cold, there is something bittersweet crushed between them. _Betrayal_ winds like smoke in the flickering darkness, twines around their dancing fingers, drinks in their mingled breaths. He drives it from his mind, because he has admitted already and for just a moment, wants to forget.

With slow, gentle claws, the demon brushes each new tear from her cheek.

And he gives her a smile then—a shaking, hollow smile.

* * *

**Theme 27: Foreign **

_"WHATTTT?!" the red-head howled, jumping off his seat cushion in utter shock. "That's it! YOU HAVE TO BE CHEATING! No person could honestly get FIVE Royal Flushes in a row!" _


	27. Shedding Black Tears

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar **

**_

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**Theme**: 27, Foreign  
**Characters**: Avis, Akano Chi, Aotsuki Noyoru, Kibara Hanabira  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Do NOT let this theme lull you into a false sense of security. It is not a humorous piece (on the whole.) It is also _extremely_ important. Kharl makes a promise here that will be central to the Avis Rara arc in Cloaks. (It's important to many of the Fighter themes to come too...)  
**Need to Know Info**: Will be continued as Theme #67, Horror. Hana is an important character but I'll introduce him later. (Last of my three Fighters.) Also, do pay attention to where I use "Kharl" and "Avis" at the end of this piece, it's somewhat important...  
**Title Provider**: Kuroi Namida (Anna Tsuchiya)

黒い涙, 流す, 明日あすなんて来ないようにと  
_Shedding Black Tears, Crying out, Wishing Tonight that Tomorrow Never Comes

* * *

_

"What?" Avis could not quite hold back his incredulity.

Blinking his enormous blue eyes once, the Dragon Fighter turned to his taller partner with a cloudy pout. "Hana-chiyan, I stated our invitation clearly enough, right?" The boy's red ponytail bounced as he nodded his head (comically) in frustration.

The other fighter, a stoic blond Dragon, nodded reluctantly, pausing a long moment before sighing. "Maybe your voice annoyed him so much he couldn't pay attention to the words."

"Don't lie! My Costa Rrrrican accent is adorable…" Akano Chi grinned slyly. "The girls looveee it!"

"Akano-san…" Avis interrupted before the red-head had a chance to start up his 'attractiveness' rant again, "I simply didn't understand what you wanted of me."

"Rara-sensei," the boy batted his dark eyelashes, "it's not what _I_ want… It's what _you_ need!" He shook his head sadly, scarlet ponytail growing even more messy as it whipped back and forth. "You never have any fun. Look, Captain Tetheus is going out tonight on scouting duty," the boy was positively wiggling in joy, "and when the kitty's away, the mice will play!" Avis was growing more confused by the second. Talking to Akano Chi was like trying to hold an intelligent conversation with a parrot. A stupid parrot.

"Really Akano-san, I…"

"Idiot here is trying to ask if you'll come to the party the Fighters' Guild is throwing tonight." The blond Dragon looked as if he'd rather be anywhere else at the moment.

"Hey! I wasn't asking, I was insisting!"

"I'm quite sorry, but I will have to decline. There is a growing stack of unfinished reports on my desk and Lord Alfee—" The doctor was interrupted by a gale of malicious giggles.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about Mr. Anxiety tonight… Come second course of dinner, he's not going to be feeling so hot." The red-head mimed fainting, falling backward toward his taller partner—instead of catching him, the blond let him fall painfully onto the cobblestone pathway.

"You're going to poison Lord Alfeegi?!" Avis blanched, uncomprehending. No wonder the Dragons were always having so many problems: the officers had as much to fear from their fighters as any attacking demon!

"Don't act so surprised Rara-sensei," the red-head chirped as he picked himself up off the ground, "you were the one who gave me the idea after all!" The doctor blinked once, twice, and could not have been more taken aback. When had he suggested poisoning the White Dragon Officer?

"Don't you remember? When we were all alone in your office the other day, and you were sorting bottles. You said 'How did this one get in here?' and I asked what it was."

"…I said Sickness Enhancer." The Alchemist almost beat himself over the head. What had possessed him to tell a possibly mental, obviously mischievous boy how to get his superiors out of the way?!

"Bin-go!" Chi crowed. The blond ("Hana", if Avis remembered correctly) shook his head at his exuberant partner and made a move to walk away, only to be stopped by Chi's fist, buried in his freshly laundered shirt. "You'll come, won't you Rara-sensei? What's a party without a _nurse_?" There was a cheeky glint in Chi's blue eyes that did not vanish, even after the other Dragon Fighter delivered a solid blow over his head.

"Ow, that hurt!"

"I don't think—"

"Pleasseeeee? You said you're from far away, right? So you've _got_ to come! You can see how we get down in Dusis!"

"Just say yes Rara-sensei, so we can get on with our lives," Hana growled, aubergine eyes flashing impatiently.

"I… I'll come," the doctor sighed finally. There was no use arguing with Akano Chi—the boy was like a brick wall.

- X – X – X -

"So, what are the rules again?" The doctor eyed the deck of playing cards with mistrust, and eyed the Fighters' headquarters with even more mistrust. The room was packed with groups of guards, mingling, drinking, and generally creating as much noise as possible.

"R-Rara-sensei, it's really simple…" Aotsuki Noyoru, resident Fighter-Faerie, stuttered. "It's a-all about the hands you play. If you win the hand, you're all right, but if you…" his nut-brown face colored awkwardly, "if you l-lose, you have to t-take off a piece of your c-clothing. The one who wins the hand gets to keep those c-clothes for the night."

"Why would anyone want to play a game like this?"

"Why _wouldn't_ they?!" Chi beamed from his place across the table. His blue eyes glittered slyly, narrowing in delight. "You're not modest, are you, Rara-sensei? Because I've taken a liking to that shirt of yours—it'll look cute on me!"

"You'd have to defeat me to get it." Competitive nature sparked, the doctor's pale eyes slipped into a glare.

"You've never even played Poker! I'm gonna kick your ass up and down the block!"

- X – X – X -

"WHATTTT?!" the red-head howled, jumping off his seat cushion in utter shock. "That's it! YOU HAVE TO BE CHEATING!" Heart-patterned boxers were earning the exuberant Fighter more than a few strange stares. "No person could honestly get _FIVE_ Royal Flushes in a row!" Avis grinned over the table, accepting the cursing Dragon's pair of black pants.

"You know," the Alchemist smiled, "I think I'm beginning to enjoy Dusis' idea of entertainment."

"That's easy for you to say," Hana growled out.

"Y-yeah!" Aotsuki moaned across the table, face an unhealthy russet red. "You still have almost all your c-clothes!" It had taken the doctor a round to figure out the rules, and he _had_ ended up losing his shirt—to the blue-haired Faerie, who was wearing it and little else. Contentedly, Avis patted the veritable mountain of clothing piling up at his side.

"I'm telling you guys, he has to be cheating!"

"B-But when we checked the deck, all the cards a-added up."

"Maybe your shuffling is what screwed us over, Akano," the blond poked his blue-eyed partner roughly. Chi heaved a heavy sigh.

"I'll just bow out now, while I still have some shreds of dignity… I think I saw Shep smuggling in some Lefury' earlier." With that, the boy vanished into the milling crowds of fighters. Aotsuki shuffled the cards gently, and Avis vowed to himself that this time he wouldn't use magic to rearrange the deck.

- X – X – X -

"Whoo I got it!" The barely-clothed swordsman came skittering back to their table, a bottle of ominous-looking liquid trailing after.

"C-Chi-chan, you don't mean to…"

"Drink so much I forget that I spent the night half-naked with a group of men instead of a cute girl?"

"Pervert," Hana sighed.

"Ever had this stuff, Rara-sensei?" The boy waved the thick glass bottle invitingly in his direction.

"Erm, no." Even with the cork still intact, Avis could smell the heady reek of alcohol. Garfakcy usually kept every drop of liquor in the castle locked away, with the exception of the dinner wines (which, after several centuries, Kharl had developed immunity to.) The quiet, dark swill of the liquid in front of him seemed foreboding.

"You've got to try it! Dusis' _Lefuryhelio_ is the finest drink you'll ever have."

"I really don't think so…" But the Dragon Fighter ignored him, procured tall mugs from seemingly nowhere and poured drinks for everyone. Kharl noticed that even though there were more than a few glasses, the bottle didn't look any less full.

"I won't let you leave tonight if you don't try it. Just a tiny bit!" the blue-eyed swordsman grinned brightly and maliciously.

"I can go if I try it?" Avis gave the glass a cursory stare, and it frothed in mock innocence at him. The doctor yielded finally, taking a stiff drink. He immediately felt the burning tingle of the alcohol, and the bitter aftertaste was not far behind. What amazed him was that the warmth of the drink did not subside. It continued to grow in his stomach until he swore even the tips of his fingers were full of a pleasant tingling. "Well..." he murmured, "this is an interesting feeling." He tentatively took another sip, doubly surprised to find the heat add up. "Does it always do this?" There was half-smile on his face that he was not aware of wearing, and heaviness to his eyes.

"You're kidding me…" The red-head leaned almost too close for comfort. "He's buzzed already." Hana reached to take Avis's glass away, and received a sharp slap on the hand from the doctor.

"A-Are you feeling all right R-Rara-sensei?" the grey-eyed Faerie questioned, concern evident in his gaze.

The words echoed a bit in his head before he could make sense of them. Of course he was feeling all right. Why wouldn't he be—was that his mouth moving? He wasn't talking out loud yet, but that was certainly his voice…

"No. I'm… I'm not all right. I hate this place! I don't want to be here!" The doctor downed the last of his glass without care, while the Alchemist watched helplessly, the beginnings of panic starting to spark. "I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for him! God…" He slumped in his chair, pale eyes clouding over with sorrow and rage. "You don't know what it's like; you couldn't possibly know what it's like to be without him." Avis felt like crying; Kharl felt like slamming a hand over his mouth.

"H-Him who?" the navy blue-haired Fighter asked gently, easing the empty bottle (when had he gotten a hold of the bottle?) from the doctor's pale fingers.

"It's my fault," Kharl snarled, "what sort of fool am I? To let it happen…"

"What happened Rara-sensei?" Chi had sat down beside him, a serious expression slipping onto his face.

"I lost him. I lost my son." Avis dropped his head onto his folded arms, quite unable to stand the sudden flashes of pity in their eyes. He was not so drunk that he could miss them.

"Rara-sensei… I'm sorry." The purple-eyed Dragon laid a hand on his shoulder, light enough and stable enough to be comforting.

"He's going to come back… He's going to come back and raise hell in this castle. He won't be himself; I didn't want to know it! God, I didn't want to know… He's going to die, and he's going to kill so many people." Three pairs of colored eyes lit on him, confusion and worry shining sharply.

Sudden fear pounded inside him, driving away any part of the liquor warmth he could have enjoyed. Dragons were going to die by the hundreds—these little boys, so full of their dreams, so alive with hope and loyalty and idealism… Youkai were going to storm this palace and blot their lives out without sparing one thought about the creatures they were murdering. In cold blood, these boys' bodies were going to be torn apart, devoured, buried in some mass grave with not a word to mark their deaths.

A foreign feeling swept through his alcohol-numbed body then, almost painful in its raw and unbroken depth—_concern_ pressed inside him, pounding in time with his heart. As much as he disliked them, he _knew_ these creatures. He knew their hopes, had laughed with them… Three pairs of eyes stared into his own, and the _care_ that softened them burned heavily inside him.

"I won't let…" he stumbled over the words, so muffled by his bare arms that all three Fighters had to lean closer. "I'll protect you all."

"That," Chi leaned onto the table and smiled gently at him, "makes me happy."

* * *

**Theme 28: Sorrow  
**_"Thank you," he murmurs into the taffeta of his master's cloak, and the cloth keeps the words half in and half out of his mouth._


	28. Born in a War of Opposite Attraction

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**Theme**: 28, Sorrow  
**Characters**: Kharl, Kharl's Master  
**Pairing**: None?  
**Warnings**: None? Could be hints of something? I don't know...  
**Need to Know Info**: Connects to _Cloaks_ chapter ten, but you don't need to know that chapter to read this. XD  
**Title Provider**: Kremlin Dusk (Utada)

_Born in a War of Opposite Attraction; it isn't or is it a Natural Conception?_

* * *

The failure is complete: absolute, bloody and still. For a moment, he stands shaking, not quite willing to believe. The dead bird does not even spasm—it stares up at him with a glassy, betrayed eye and is motionless. The whimper escapes him, slipping serpent-like across his fangs, before he can stop it, and it echoes in the stone corridor, growing faint and frightening as it fades. 

"T-Tori-chan…(1)" His own voice seems impossibly distant, coming into his ears like a far away scream. He calls to the stained form again, does not expect an answer, knows the creature is dead. He can _smell_ it: a bitter, burning under-taste to the air that is like lye and grains of dust, spiraling down and choking the breath from his lungs. His pale, delicate fingers dance slowly across the marble tiles, catching on the canals between blocks, furrowing through dust, advancing as white and cold as death. He takes the broken body in his hands, feels the blood and feathers warm (but chilling!) against his bare skin.

"I'm sorry!" he whispers, cupping the remains of the creature in his palms and trembling. "Please, I'm sorry…" Words do not make a difference, he knows—but they should, and one day he will be strong enough that death will not be followed with apologies.

"Who are you talking to?" His master's voice is low and intrigued, no less sultry than it ever is, no less heartless.

"Ah…" He turns to look at the man, swath in gold and navy, all ebony hair and granite grey eyes. "No one," he says, and hurriedly hides the bird behind his back. He knows it's futile to try and keep things from him—the master can see everything from the contents of his soul to distant, tragic future. He waits to see not if the man will notice the creature's blood running through his tiny fingers, but if he will care.

"You killed it," the Alchemist murmurs at last, a fanged half-smile softening his dark features—his pale-haired apprentice lowers his face in shame.

"I didn't know…" Kharl stutters; he hopes to defend himself though he was praised and not accused, "I didn't know it would happen. I didn't mean to hurt it."

The master takes his hand roughly, making no effort to be gentle or to be kind. With slender, clawed fingers, he pries the still feathered body from his apprentice's hands and traps it in his own.

"It's such a plain looking creature. Mortal beings are all so useless." The man smiles then, a glint of conflicting superiority and admiration in his steel eyes. He runs a hand delicately through the younger boy's lilac hair. "A beautiful little songbird like you shouldn't associate with waste..."

"But I—" Kharl snaps his mouth shut and crushes the desperate words before they can cause affront. The grey-eyed youkai stares at him with open curiosity and guarded care.

"Why are you so moved by this insignificant corpse?"

"Because… Because it's my fault. It didn't deserve to die—it makes me sad." He knows the words fall on deaf ears; emotion means nothing to the older man, who sees the world as a series of numbers, of chemicals, of riddles that can always be solved with no need for personal attachment.

"Sad…" the older demon repeats, and there is a far-away look in his eyes.

The lilac-haired boy feels the youki before he knows what he is feeling, and soft grey light that is his master's magic shimmers once, and dies. There is a dull twitter, and the bird –feathers still irreparably stained– hops twice in the larger youkai's hand and then takes flight. The sparrow circles above them, with languid flaps and a new shine to its crimson eyes. It trills once, a youkai sound that resonates inside the smaller boy, and darts through the marble columns toward freedom, becoming in seconds only a speckle of brown in an untainted azure sky.

Kharl takes the steps between them (the long distance that he crosses so often because the other man will never move) and wraps his child's hold around the Alchemist.

"Thank you," he murmurs into the taffeta of his master's cloak, and the cloth keeps the words half in and half out of his mouth. The older demon is silent for a moment, staring at the horizon where the sparrow is already long gone.

"Sadness… such a weakness," he says finally.

"I love you." Kharl uses a gentle smile; pretends to brush his master's words aside. Beneath his façade of nonchalance, sorrow presses hard against his heart.

* * *

**Translation Note:**  
(1) - _Tori-chan_: Literally "bird-chan" or little bird. Same implication as "birdie", but much cutie in Japanese.

* * *

**Theme 29: Happiness  
**_Zouma's amethyst eye catches Kharl's lilac, and both of them burst into uncontrollable giggles. Ruwalk blinks slowly, more than a little lost._


	29. What Color is Sorrow?

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**Theme**: 29, Happiness  
**Characters**: Kharl, Zouma, Rath, Rune, Ruwalk, mentions of others  
**Pairing**: Implied Raam/Gil... as well at something that might be a hint at Roubal/Bierrez.  
**Warnings**: Crossdressing? Madness.  
**Need to Know Info**: Follows the storyline established in Theme 14, Smile.  
**Title Provider**: Pure Emotions (Noir)

_What Color is Sorrow? What Color is Happiness? I Woke this Morning and Realized my Heart Knows Nothing._

* * *

The boy giggles, a happy light sound that, for only a bare second, makes Kharl's steady pace falter. How can any one sound be so very uplifting? Just listening to the little demon makes something inside him dance with benevolence. Momentarily, it makes him feel old, feel wise, feel as if he has been returned to the innocence of children.

"And _then_ Rune said, 'Rath, don't you say another word!' And Rath said, 'But Rune… You _are_ wearing a dress…'" The little demon chuckles again, amethyst eyes half closed in delight.

"I imagine our poor Dragon Prince came out of the affair sporting more than a few bruises?" Kharl cannot help but ask, though he had seen the results this morning himself—of course Rath had not let him get close enough to heal the wounds, but that he'd been close enough to _see_ the wounds was a sign of considerable progress…

"Yes," Zouma sighs as he hurries to keep up with his Master, "and Lady Raseleane made him try on the dress too."

"Ooh, rubbed salt into his open wounds." Sudden shock stops them both in their tracks, and collision is narrowly avoided as Ruwalk rounds the castle corner in a dead barrel.

"Ah! Zouma-chan, K-Kharl-san!" the Saffron officer pants and covers the unease in his amber eyes quickly. "Have either of you seen Bierrez today?"

"No, I haven't."

"I saw him being chased by Delte this morning…" Zouma seems keenly aware or how strange that statement sounds—he flushes and stutters out the rest quickly. "She told me she's got a message for him, from his dead friend, Rou-something? He was actually going to take the message from her, but then Ringleys told him all about Gil's visitor…" The tiny demon colors again; an awkward laugh worms its way across his tongue. "I guess Bierrez wasn't as close to his friend as Gil was to Raamgarnas..." Ruwalk and Kharl stifle snorts, and wonder if it wouldn't be kinder telling Delte to just give up.

"Well, all right…" the brunette Dragon huffs finally, "I guess I'll have to keep searching."

"Why do you need him? Has Lord Lykouleon called an officer's meeting?" Kharl cannot halt his curiosity, even at the thought that, had a meeting been called, he would not have been invited.

"Oh, no, nothing like that—Lady Raseleane wants him. She said it was a dire emergency, and 'if she didn't get someone with a thirty-two inch waist, she'd never be able to finish her alterations'." Zouma's amethyst eye catches Kharl's lilac, and both of them burst into uncontrollable giggles. Ruwalk blinks slowly, more than a little lost. "Okay well… I guess I'll keep looking."

"I almost feel pity for the Red Officer… And I'll think I'll avoid the main castle for the rest of today," Kharl tries to stifle a smirk and fails.

"Why?" Zouma questions gingerly, wiping tears of mirth from his delicate lashes. The Alchemist grins sheepishly in answer, setting both hands on his hips.

"I happen to be a trim thirty-two!"

"Ssshh!" the little demon flails dramatically, "she'll hear you!"

"I highly doubt that—"

"I could have sworn I heard someone say thirty-two out here…" The Dragon Queen's voice carries over the gardens.

"Ahhh, I told you!" Both demons scuttle off down the cobblestone path like hermit crabs without their shells.

-X-X-X-

"RATHHHHH!" Kharl and Zouma pause in their lesson –attempting to change the silver fastening of the older demon's Light Dragon Amulet to gold– at the sound of Rune's enraged shriek. Though they can hear the footsteps long before they reach the meadow, it is not less shocking when a nervous Dragon Prince streaks through the clearing, Faerie Prince (sword flashing) not far behind.

"I take it back Rune! The dress did look better on you!"

"RATHHHH!"

They are gone as quickly as they'd come.

"Well… continue please." Kharl gestures to his bird companion. The smiles on both their faces shine briefly with pure feeling.

As he watches the smaller demon –nose wrinkled, eyes narrowed– work through the Alchemy that is their common bond, warmth wells up inside him. It has something to do with Rath's desperate shouts echoing over the rampant wildflowers; it has something to do with Bierrez's youki dashing back and forth across the castle, Delte's spiritual shine in pursuit. It might even have something to do with Raseleane's distant "Ruwalk, why didn't you tell me earlier that you were a thirty-two?!"

It's a feeling foreign to him: encompassing, a lightness that threatens to float his heart away. Zouma cheers in triumph, childish eyes shining in the golden sun of the afternoon, and Kharl thinks that, for once, he knows exactly the right word to say—happiness.

* * *

**Theme 30: Under the Rain  
**_There was a time when this would have meant something to him—but now it is nothing but another night, another fruitless display of power, just another storm that he will weather and forget._


	30. I was Dreaming of the Fire

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**Theme**: 30, Under the Rain  
**Characters**: Kharl, Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Pure and unadulterated Kharl-flavored angst.  
**Need to Know Info**: Umm... I didn't proofread this one at all? I've got a flight to catch, sorry.  
**Title Provider**: So You Disappear (Xandria)

_I was Dreaming of the Fire, of the Time when it was Wild..._

* * *

The low, distant rumble of thunder does not seem ominous; for a moment, it is nothing but noise. Nothing but noise: a little desperate, a little sad. A far-off streak of lightning is reflected by the ocean, broken by the churning waves, made less powerful as its image is captured. There was a time when all of this would have impressed him, made his eyes slip wide in wonder, made his heart beat fast from joy. There was a time when this would have meant something to him—now it is nothing but another night, another fruitless display of power, just another storm that he will weather and forget. 

Wind rips the trees back and forth in a violent waltz, whispers like a lost lover through the limbs and leaves and snatches at his clothes with greedy fingers. Lilac strands strike and tangle with his pale eyelashes; he cannot see and does not care, and like a restless spirit, he passes silently beneath the hissing canopy. His steps are sedate, his eyes are half-lidded. There is nothing in his nonchalance to betray the agony bubbling like acid in his stomach, the lead filling his lungs, the weight of desolation closing like a trap around his heart.

The sky is one roiling shade of charcoal, of almost black, lighter in places where the sides of clouds curve over and under each other like misshapen braids of hair, like wild blades of grass, fighting to be closest to not the sun, but to the earth. There is a pearl shine to the air, black pearls that glimmer so steel-gray in the light. There is no light today—but something makes everything gently blur together until he cannot tell the difference between the sky and the sea, the trees and the clouds, the dark earth and his pale, pale skin. For a moment, he feels as if he ought to say something, ought to raise his voice around the haunting whistle of the wind, just so he can be sure that he is still living, that he is still a separate being from the worms crawling beneath his feet. He does not make a sound—because a part of him does not want to. A part of him wonders what it would be like to be a mindless worm beneath the soil, wonders if that might not be a better life.

Then the rain begins to fall. Soft, too soft for the rolling thunder so far out in the sea, too soft for the crack and shatter of lightning, splitting the clouds like spears through the yielding bellies of fish. The steady fall of drops breaks something inside him: he cannot feel them—there is no way for the rain to work its way beneath the layers of his cloak (the layers of his heart); there is no way his moon pale skin could ever hope to be chilled or bruised by the crystalline drops. For just a moment, just the barest of moments, he prays that the next drop will fall faster, fall harder, leave a mark on his unmarrable skin. For a second, he wants to feel a pain he has never felt before. Surely something like that could remind him that he is really alive. Something like that could make him tremble, something like that could make him _feel_—he wants nothing more than to be able to feel again.

Lightning ripples in the sky like a serpent, and breaks his thoughts in two. His sharp lilac eyes, half-lidded but no less aware –no less desperate, no less helpless, no less cold– trace the string-like descent of the drops. They are like silver ribbons to his sight, binding Heaven and Earth together for an eye blink, and then breaking, slipping away. He watches one fall from a distance even his gaze cannot pierce. He watches it fall, turning over and over in the air, shimmering in the reflected glint of its companions. He watches it strike his raised hand, and he does not feel it—why isn't he connected to Heaven? The drop rolls off his skin like the water it is, and fades away. In the end, not even the silver thread of rain is enough to bind Heaven to Hell.

"Master Kharl, what are you doing?!" A distant cry catches his ear only vaguely, and he does not turn. The boy's demanding tug is not enough to move him. "You're going to get sick."

Kharl prays that he will, and knows that he won't.

* * *

**Theme 31: Flowers  
**_"I can't remember my father," Nohiro's, Rath's voice says, "but I bet he'd be someone like you."_


	31. Everything Reminds Me

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**Theme**: 31, Flowers  
**Characters**: Kharl, Nohiro, Rath (in spirit)  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: Takes place during book 18's extra story "Flower".  
**Title Provider**: Fade to Black (Alexz Johnson) 

_Everything Reminds Me of... Everything You Are... Fades to Black_

* * *

There is a feeling, a scent, a warmth in the air around him. It has nothing to do with the flowers—or maybe in the end, it does. 

The heat of the black tea radiates through the porcelain, through his immaculate white gloves, through his cold skin; it touches his cold heart with tentative tendrils, settles in his throat, holds the words in. Without willing it, his free hand traces the outlines of pure white, pale purple petals.

_It reminds me of a flower…_

The boy smiles then, a shining, gentle smile against ivory rim of his cup.

"You're strange," he giggles, "but I like you." It is an odd thing to say, but for a moment, looking at the dark-haired man through the shimmering steam of his own tea, it seems absolutely normal. No, the Alchemist realizes as the words resonate inside him, it seems almost familiar.

He is, for a bare second, unsettled, and there seems to be something in his mind (a memory, a dream, something not quite as solid as either of those) that struggles to answer. He feels as if there are words he is supposed to say—words he knows, yet cannot find. And then in the next moment the feeling is gone, and he is, once again, simply staring over the gold-plated rim of a teacup at a smiling stranger. The boy chatters idly, and though he nods along, Kharl's mind is miles away, thinking of another dark-haired child.

Perhaps it is only indulgence, but the Alchemist imagines. If those strands of hair were just a little darker, and these a little whiter… If those eyes were dappled crimson, if that smile glinted with fangs… Playing pretend is a game he has never grown out of, and here it makes things suddenly easier, suddenly more meaningful.

"I never knew my parents," Rath murmurs, but the weak grin does not leave his face. "They might even be alive somewhere… I just…" A hand slides through his tussled hair, ivory and black strands mingling and tangling around his fingers. "I can't remember." And then his grin is back in full force, as if nothing at all weighs upon him. Kharl thinks that this new acquaintance has more in common with his son than he ever expected—they both love to hide.

For a moment, the Alchemist stops watching the boy across the table and contemplates the flowers that sit coldly beside him. They are pale, plain, and simple. They do not draw the eye; they do not seem to affect anything at all. Their too-fragile white faces seem insignificant, especially when he compares them to the bouquet of roses sitting a table over. But when he stares at them now, there seems to be something there that wasn't before. These are flowers that have sparked devotion; these are flowers that shed a light he cannot explain.

He takes one, only one, from the bundle, and turns it between his alabaster fingers. A steady lilac eye surveys its form—he holds it up carefully before the roses. White petals stand out solidly against the black; the lilac and the golden pistils seem as if part of the same plant.

The tiny ivory bloom, insignificant alone, is suddenly starkly illuminated, is made grand—and makes grander the midnight rose. Kharl wonders if they were not always meant to be together, and for a moment, he cannot tell them apart.

"I can't remember my father," Nohiro's, Rath's voice says, "but I bet he'd be someone like you."

…_I was once desperately searching for…_

_

* * *

_**Theme 32: Night**  
_Ruwalk stands beside him in the darkness._


	32. On This Endless Night

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**Theme**: 32, Night  
**Characters**: Avis, Ruwalk  
**Pairing**: Avis/Ruwalk-tinted? (I know, WTF? I didn't intend it to happen either...)  
**Warnings**: Enough symbolism to make you sick. Vague POV on purpose.  
**Need to Know Info**: "Darkness" is not the dark, "light" is not sunlight.  
**Title Provider**: Now Or Never (Josh Groban)

_There's no Black and White, Only You and Me on this Endless Night_

* * *

Ruwalk stands beside him in the darkness. 

"Is it foolish?" Tremulous, weak, distant, demanding: Avis does not know what to call the man's words, does not even begin to analyze them. He is caught up simply looking for an answer.

"Yes," the doctor murmurs finally, and there is a note of finality and a note of welcome in that reply. Ruwalk's amber eyes (a little too soft and a little too trusting Avis decides), fall on him.

_He shuts his eyes because there is nothing to see: no salvation, no end, no anchor. Oblivion rises like a murder of crows—blackness, blood, death in a whisper of wings._

"I'm sorry," Ruwalk says into the midnight mist.

"A fool shouldn't apologize to a fool." Doctor Rara does not return the amber look (is not quite ready). He stares over the gardens, the lifeless blank windows, the moon's reflection in a still black pond. "Can I see them," he asks finally, "your scars?"

Ruwalk is still; his pale skin glints in the half-light of the night, all alabaster and so many finely chiseled lines. He is perfect in the half-light: a statue, not a man. And then he unbuttons his shirt slowly, one round copper piece at a time.

Imperfection dulls the air around him, makes the moonlight suddenly harsh and cold. Avis longs to cross the distance (it is meager, growing smaller) and touch that bared skin. There is an echo of screaming in their silence, an echo of blood on ivory, on delicate furrowed flesh. He thinks that if he were to spread his fingers, they might fit perfectly over those cruel marks.

Ruwalk laughs, wry and hollow. Kharl's false blue eyes turn away from the ruined artwork. He is the failed artist. It was his trembling hand that struck the hideous blow.

"Can I see _your_ scars?"

"If you look close enough."

_It is there like smoke suddenly—encompassing, evanescent, alive. It is in his lungs, his eyes; it warms him to the point of burning. _

"It _is_ foolish to be afraid of the darkness." Avis says, says just to hear it (to see it, as his words spiral silver-clouded through the frozen air). Ruwalk does not move, stands half-dressed in the blackness. "Still… What are men but fools?" His smile (he is wearing one now, like a piece of clothing) is empty, too wide to be real, not warm enough to pierce the midnight chill. "And evil is an easy thing to fear."

"What are you afraid of?" Ruwalk's eyes are not as naïve as he wants them to be; agony is shining in the glare.

"I'm afraid," Avis murmurs, counting stars through the haze of his breath, "of light."

_He shuts his eyes because it hurts to see. Mercy rises like a flock of doves—white light, breath, perfection in a whisper of wings._

Ruwalk stands beside him in the darkness.

* * *

**Theme #33: Expectations  
**"I am taking your son to Prom and there is nothing you can do about it!"


	33. Should've Seen it Coming

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**Theme**: 33, Expectations  
**Characters**: Cesia, Rath, Kharl, Garfakcy, Sinistra, Zouma  
**Pairing**: Rath/Cesia. X3  
**Warnings**: The strangest AU you will ever read. The setting honestly makes no sense; don't try to figure my crazy head out.  
**Need to Know Info**: The first in a set of three stories revolving around "Prom". Will be continued as Theme 58, _Kick in the Head_.  
**Title Provider**: Dani California (Red Hot Chili Peppers) 

_She's a Lover, Baby, and a Fighter... Should've Seen it Coming..._

* * *

"Rath?" She jabbed at his side with a lacquered purple nail, stifling a smile as he wriggled just out of her reach again. "You did ask your father about the limo, right?" 

"I… uh…" The dark-haired boy across from her shifted his feet through the emerald grass as if the undersides of the blades might offer an answer. "Well, maybe he won't want to spend that much money."

Cesia blinked golden eyes in his direction, once, twice. "Your family is loaded! You probably already _own_ a limo."

"We don't own a limo," Rath muttered, but there was a fair deal of uncertainty in his voice.

"You could probably afford one with the change in your pocket." As much as she had come to love him (to hate him, she swore), Cesia had never quite forgiven the dark-haired boy for being a prince—figuratively. The fact that she had so little only threw more light on his incredible privileges. Rath was the beloved son of a scientific genius, the private pupil of Headmaster Lykouleon, and if one more teacher called him 'a good kid, despite circumstances' she might just gag. Still, _despite_ circumstances, she'd actually come to enjoy spending time with Rath. He was fun to argue with, if nothing else.

"You're sure there's no way Rune can get the limo?" Rath's red eyes (a strange color, she'd always thought, but then who was she to talk?) squinted into the sun; a visible pout plucked at his lips. "I could give him the money."

"Minors need parental signatures on the rental agreement."

"Oh," Rath didn't say anything more. It was an unwritten rule: _one must never speak of Rune's parents, least of all to_ Rune. "Well," he offered at last, "what about Thatz?" The look Cesia shot him, over the edge of her fashion magazine, was stunningly cold.

"Even _if_ Thatz actually spent any of money you'd give him on the limo, don't you think his mother would want to know where all that cash came from?"

"He could just tell the truth—it came from me."

"And wouldn't she wonder why _your_ father isn't the one signing off on a limo _you're_ paying for?"

"I just… I can't ask my dad!" Rath huffed noisily, blowing his black and white bangs askew. Cesia could see he was quickly declining into one of his childish tantrums.

"And why not?" It was a deliberate attempt to incense him: she was very much in the mood for a row. Unfortunately, Rath chose that moment to pull back, becoming flustered with embarrassment rather than frustration.

"If I ask for a limo… I'll have to tell him I'm _going_ to the Prom."

"What?! You didn't even tell him that?" Cesia stared incredulously; Rath wriggled a little farther away, in anticipation of her outburst. "I know you said you couldn't tell him about me because he didn't want you dating, but Rath, this is the Prom! Parents are supposed to look forward to this night. High school memories and growing up and 'Aw, my baby looks so cute all dolled up!'"

Rath choked suddenly, hacking and coughing in a most unsettling way. "My father better never say anything like that," he glowered after regaining his composure.

"You know what I mean! Do you really think he wouldn't let you go?"

"No, I just don't think he'd approve of…" As if realizing the direction his sentence was taking, the dark-haired boy clammed up sharply—but not before Cesia figured things out.

"You don't think your dad would approve of me? Because I'm not some rich, spoiled princess?!" The snarl in her voice was almost caustic.

"Uh!" Rath sat up quickly, flailing his hands in a placating manner, "he just has very high expectations of people and—"

"So I'm good enough for you, but not your family?!" She leapt to her feet, all indignant rage and flouncing skirt. "Hey you—Rath's driver," she shouted and tromped down the hill toward the waiting silver Benz. The chauffeur, an innocent purple-haired young man, looked out the window nervously, not quite sure what to make of the one-woman-force-of-destruction quickly approaching. Rath trailed behind her, trying and failing to slow the black-haired monster down.

"Cesia, we're not goin—"

"Take me to Rath's house, right now!" Without waiting for the man to hold the door, Cesia ripped the handle back and slammed herself roughly into the seat.

"You don't want to meet my—"

"Sit down and shut up!" She pulled Rath into the car by his tie.

"Master Rath, what should I do?" The driver peered nervously at the pair through the rear-view mirror.

"Zouma don't go—OWW! Cesia, your nails are stabbing me!"

"I know," she smirked, tightening her furious pinch even further.

"Ugh, just do as she says!"

x x x

Cesia had visited Rath's "house" on more than one occasion ('smuggled in and smuggled out with no chance of being seen or _seeing_' was probably a more accurate description), but the place never ceased to amaze her.

While other rich people could claim to live in "houses like castles", Rath really _did_ live in a castle—with turrets and everything. The building was set far back on acres and acres of jungle-like forest punctured by random and shockingly well-kept gardens. Cesia had found the entire affair eccentric, but she couldn't deny its beauty. Perhaps the only thing she did dislike about the place was its gate: a ridiculous mix of iron and gilt, with a word scrawled over its top in what appeared to solid, molded silver. And she wasn't quite sure why the fence read "Arinas", when Rath's last name was Illuser. Still, standing out there and looking in, it really felt like staring into another dimension…

"Thanks Zouma." Rath sighed when they had clambered out of the car parked near the front steps.

"You're not really taking her to see Master Kharl, are you?" The young man peered over the edge of the tinted window nervously.

"Yes, he is!" Cesia dragged Rath backward up the front steps by his starched white collar. She rammed the gold plated doorbell repeatedly, waiting hardly a second between insistent rings.

"Rath, if you ring that bell one more time I'm gonna beat the—" a young voice filtered through the doors, just before one was yanked violently open.

"Oh." Cesia said it first, followed shortly by the much smaller, furious boy just inside the threshold. "Rath," she turned to look at her companion, who was bashing his forehead repeatedly into his palm, "you didn't tell me you had a little brother!"

"What?!" The green-eyed boy said it first, followed shortly by Rath.

"He's our maid," the dark-haired teenager growled.

"I prefer _housekeeper_!"

"This little kid? Aren't there laws against that?" Cesia's index finger hovered dangerously close to Garfakcy's face, and for a moment, the servant looked tempted to bite it off.

"Who are calling 'little', you hussy?!"

"What did you just—"

"Get out of the way Garfakcy," Rath clonked the shorter boy on the head, "or I'll tell my dad you were slacking off."

"He wouldn't believe you," the maid smirked but followed the order nonetheless, returning to the task of sweeping the entrance hall.

"Your dad must be pretty stingy if the only hired help he's willing to pay is some sweatshop kid," Cesia eyes roved while her mouth stayed on the topic. She'd never had a decent chance to look around before, and the just the opening chamber was enough to stun her.

"My dad doesn't pay Garfakcy… and he's really not a kid." Rath's voice shattered her admiration of the frescoed walls, bringing wide a golden gaze back to him.

"Your maid is a midget?! A slave labor midget!" Cesia gawked.

Garfakcy's green eyes glared poisonously at the girl from the far corner of the room.

"He's not a midget either. My dad keeps him eternally young with these creepy pills…"

Cesia blinked once, twice, and then giggled brightly. "You come up with the weirdest stories sometimes." For a moment, it looked as if Rath might contradict her, but then he just sighed and started across the room.

"Rath!" a cheery voice called somewhere above them, stopping both teenagers in their tracks. Cesia jerked her head up in time to catch a pale blur—that vaulted over the third floor's railing and free fell toward the hard marble floor tens of feet below. _AHH, it's a suicide!_ she had just long enough to think, before her terror was cut stunningly short. Instead of slamming painfully into the tiles, the man's descent slowed in mid-air (_Impossible!_) and he floated to a quiet landing before them. "Welcome home!"

_WHITE!_ Cesia couldn't think anything else—because the strange man was so very _WHITE!_ that it was almost painful. His hair was a dark shade of white (with lilac tones too, she amended), his skin was white (even whiter than Rath, who was quite pale), and his clothes were such an immaculate white that they shone, even in the shadowed room. In fact, she wasn't sure if they even were clothes: it looked like he'd woken up that morning and decided to take the bed sheet with him. He blinked pale eyes (_Almost white!_) slowly in their direction.

"Good morning… Father," Rath droned, bracing himself for tide of trouble that was about to be unleashed.

"Wait, _this_ guy is your dad?!" Oblivious to manners, Cesia gaped unabashedly. Lilac eyes blinked again, and then narrowed—but only for a second, before a gentle smile covered everything up.

"Who's your… friend, Rath?"

"This is Cesi—"

"You really are Rath's dad?" She had expected someone… scarier. Tall, dark and evilly mysterious? Maniacal laughter? Foot long fangs and forked tongue? Evil Dictator Voice, even! He was tall, and his canine teeth did seem a little more pointy than normal, but other than that, Rath's father seemed generally likeable. His hair and fashion sense were as eccentric as his castle, but if she had to sum him up in a word, Cesia would certainly have chosen "cute", in a cockatoo way…

"Yes, that's what the birth certificate says." The man shifted his weight from foot to foot, taking a good measure of the girl in front of him.

"Well then, hello Mr. Illu—"

"C-Cesia, don't say that!" Rath's voice cut her off, but not in time. For a moment, she watched a terrifying and cold expression flash across the taller man's face. It was quickly replaced by a false cheer.

"Call me Kharl," the man chuckled (and was that a dark undertone she was detecting?), "just Kharl."

"Err, okay… Kharl… I'm Cesia! I'm Rath's gi—OW!" She jerked her foot from under Rath's insistent and heavy boot, "I'm Rath's friend from school! He was talking about you, and I thought it was strange that I'd never got to see his house, so I asked if I could come home with him today." She smiled brightly, as innocently as possible. For a moment, Kharl stared solemnly, and she was sure he was seeing straight through her lie, but then he clapped his hands (_white gloves!_) and gave her what seemed like a genuine smile.

"Garfakcy," he called across the room, "would you please check on things downstairs for me?"

"Yes Master Kharl." The boy propped his broom against the wall and disappeared as if by magic.

"Now," Kharl spun on his heel, "why don't I give you a tour, Cesia?"

"Yes, please." She fell into step after him; Rath trailed behind, wondering which monster was going to bow first… "Rath," the girl hissed from the corner of her mouth, "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you. Your father _is_ weird."

"Through this hall is the observatory, and through that way is Rath's wing of the castle." Kharl purposefully ignored the third hallway, and its descending spiral path.

"What's downstairs?" Cesia stopped before the downward stairs, peering into the almost ominous Cloud of Darkness® conveniently obscuring all but the first steps.

"Curiosity killed the cat." The lilac-haired man's voice roiled cold and macabre over her shoulder. She spun around, smiling as brightly as could be forced.

When he had begun to walk again, she muttered "but satisfaction brought it back" under her breath.

"This way leads to—" A sudden explosion shook the castle, rattled the stained glass windows, and sent chips of frescoed plaster down around them. "Garfakcy!" Rath's father shouted apologetically towards the basement steps, "I completely forgot! I meant to write two _teaspoons_ of Arsenic!"

"HOW DO YOU CONFUSE TEASPOONS WITH _CUPS_?!"

_Arsenic?_ Cesia gulped.

x x x

"And this," Kharl flung open a pair of wide French doors, "is the dining hall!" _Looks more like a_ concert _hall_, she grumbled to herself. The room could have comfortably seated an entire symphony orchestra, except that a massive mahogany table ran through its middle. Though there were elegant taffeta-upholstered chairs running the length of the table, Cesia couldn't imagine ever having so many people in one place. And with such as eccentric man as its keeper, she highly doubted the castle had much company.

Kharl settled at the table, white cloak (_bed sheet!_) spilling over the delicately carved edges of the chair. Rath took the familiar place at his father's right, leaving Cesia warring between hiding beside him or braving a place next to Kharl. Determination sparked, and she plunked unceremoniously down on the pale man's left.

"Garfakcy," the lilac-haired man called again, and Cesia was not sure why—they were now much too far from the basement steps to be heard. "Garfakcy, you can leave that for a moment, we need tea served in the dining hall." To her utter amazement, the maid seemed not only to have heard, but had no trouble replying.

His voice filtered into the room, only a little muffled. "What should I do with the arsenic?"

Kharl leveled a sharp stare in Cesia's direction. "Bring that up too."

Garfakcy did not immediately appear, obviously having gone off the enormous kitchens to get the tea, and Cesia fidgeted in her seat.

"Cesia, how was it that you met Rath?" The lilac-haired man blinked once in her direction, but it was a cold and evaluating look.

"W-We took a cooking class together." Rath cringed at her words.

"Cooking class? Rath, you told me you took Chemistry instead of Home Economics." Kharl seemed genuinely confused.

"I…took both?" Rath was horrible liar, and not even his father was falling for it.

"Why did you—" but the lilac-haired man's question was cut short by the stately click of claws across the marble. Sinistra nudged open the door and wound a path to her master's side.

"A dog! Rath, you didn't tell me you had a dog!"

"There is a lot Rath apparently has not been telling…" Cesia ignored the man's mumblings and reached out a hand to pet the large black canine.

**Excuse me?** a sharp and haughty voice rung suddenly in her head.

"What did you say?" She blinked at her table companions, who stared blankly back. Shrugging, she eagerly returned to stroking the black dog's face, around the amethyst that seemed to be imbedded in its forehead. "How's that boy? Like it? Want me to pet your tummy?"

**No, I don't. In fact, I would appreciate it if you would remove your filthy hands from my fur. I just bathed. And though your eyes may be feeble, that is no excuse to mistake me for a male—unless, of course, you would like the favor returned, Mr. Cesia.**

"R-Rath… I think your dog is talking to me…" She reluctantly pulled her hand back. "How do you know my name?"

Sinistra's aubergine eyes glittered with what was clearly annoyance. **I know a great deal about a great many things.**

"Does your dog talk all the time?" She had been willing to forgive the castle. She had been willing to forget the floating, and the explosion. Hell, she could even overlook the arsenic, provided the midget (who may or may not really be immortal, she reminded herself) wasn't in the kitchen adding it to her tea. But a talking dog was really too much!

"You can hear Sinistra?" Rath almost leapt out of his seat. "I can't do that!" Kharl's eyes had taken back their evaluating look—but this time, she thought, they seemed a shade warmer.

It was at that exact moment, quite conveniently, that Garfakcy entered the room, trailed by a scrumptious looking tea set. Cesia wanted to try all the numerous biscuits, jams, and cookies, but quickly restrained herself. In this strange place, there was good chance a cookie could take your life!

Squirming with the effort, Cesia held back until Rath took a snack from the pile, ate it, and did not die. That was test enough, and she quickly loaded her plate with the sugary treats.

"So Cesia, would you say you're good friends with my son?"

"I should hope so consider—OW!" Rath had kicked her under the table. "Well, yes and no! We've had a few classes together… A few mutual acquaintances." The dark-haired boy ignored her furious glare. Kharl sipped his tea and watched through narrowed eyes, taking in the silent argument and petting Sinistra's head with a free hand.

"I see. It's very rare for Rath to bring someone here."

"I'm very persistent," Cesia offered, pointedly becoming deaf to Rath's choked complaints.

"It seems so," the lilac-haired man smiled, "I can't think of anyone else who's made it past Garfakcy." Kharl bit gingerly into a chocolate chip cookie. "He's killed them all on the front steps." Cesia giggled half from terror and half from the bubbling hope that all these strange happenings were some grand trick.

They sat for a while in silence, sharing meaningless banter—Cesia chose her words carefully, because she could almost see Rath's father weighing them on a scale. _I was so determined to set this guy straight, but now I can't say anything. _

"So you really had no other purpose in coming here than to see the house?" Kharl stared at her, and she could see that he'd been waiting to ask that since she'd first fed him the lie.

"I…" Rath's crimson warning glare dared her to say another word. _If I tell Rath's father the truth, I might just meet that arsenic after all…_

**That would be worth seeing.** Sinistra's face split in a fanged grin. **You lot make funny noises when you die.**

"Oh shut up!" Cesia shook a fist in the dog's direction; one of Kharl's lilac eyebrows raised the barest amount.

**I didn't **_**say**_** anything, though you ought to. Lord Kharl doesn't like secrets.**

_He seems to be nothing_ but _secrets!_ There was a ringing bark in the dark-haired girl's mind that might have been a canine laugh. The dog rose to her slender feet and padded away.

**The good are always merry, save by an evil chance, and the merry love to meddle, and the merry love to dance…**(1)

"What were you going to say, Cesia dear?" Kharl set his tea cup down a little harder than he should have.

"I came here to…" Rath looked ready to tear her to shreds. "I came to tell you—OW!" He had kicked her under the table again. "THAT IS IT! I'M SICK OF THIS!" She leapt from her chair, throwing down her sugar cookie in disgust. Eyes alight with fire, she spun on Rath's father. "I came here to tell you that I'm Rath's girlfriend, I'm taking him to the Prom, and there's NOTHING you can do about it!"

Kharl almost cowered in his seat, and Rath _was_ cowering.

"No telepathic dog, immortal maid, arsenic explosion, or floating father is going to stop me!" She jabbed a teaspoon in Kharl's direction. The lilac-haired man looked vaguely threatened.

"Rath, you want to go to this dance with Cesia?"

The crimson-eyed boy squirmed under his father's gaze. "I was going to…"

"I wish you would have told me." Silently, Kharl rose from the table, cloak swishing softly. A sudden smile lit the older man's face, but Cesia thought it was a little strained. "There are a lot of things to be done! You'll have to get the proper wear, tickets, flowers... You can take the limousine if you like."

"We really _do_ own a limo?" Rath blinked.

"I think it's somewhere in the alternate dimension at the back of the stable…" the lilac-haired man mused. Cesia was too relieved to even question that possibility.

x x x

"That wasn't that hard Rath! You just have to learn to stand up to your father!" Cesia pinched the red-eyed boy's arm playfully as he walked her back down the front steps. Zouma smiled warily as they approached the car, but took in the girl's good mood and was quickly relieved.

"Don't act so reassured Cesia," Rath leaned onto the tinted window, "you may have met my dad's expectations, but that does _not_ mean he has accepted you." He looked back over his shoulder toward the looming castle. "In fact, I think you may have just started a war."

x x x

"Garfakcy!" the Alchemist called sharply, "procure yourself a ticket to this 'Prom'. I want them four feet apart at all times."

* * *

**Notes:**

(1) - Sinistra is purposely misquoting W. B. Yeats here. What she says will be very important to the rest of the story! (When I actually get to the rest of the story...)

* * *

**Theme #34: Stars  
**_"Master, I'm sick of turning water into wine!" The lilac-haired boy resists the urge to stomp his white boot or cross his arms. "You never even let me drink it!"_


	34. I Simply Keep Staring at the Sky

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme**: 34, Stars  
**Characters**: Kharl, Kharl's Master, cameos for Rath and the Star Princess and a load of other people...  
**Pairing**: Oh lord, too many to list. Dude, I swear I meant the "dragon" to be Kaistern, but something happened and he turned into someone else. Subtle shounen-ai... I guess.  
**Warnings**: I **can't** write faerie tales! Exceptionally poor story-telling skills lie ahead. I really meant most of this stuff platonically, but I guess you guys know how far my platonic can go. Bratty teen Kharl for the win!  
**Need to Know Info**: Erm, just go with it? I characterized Kharl's master totally different than usual. But Kharl must have loved him for a reason, right?  
**Title Provider**: Caged Bird (D.N.Angel)

I Simply Keep Staring at the Sky

* * *

Left Bird bates nervously along his shoulder, talons sinking deeper into the material and leaving irreparable tears and the most minute of punctures that heal only to be torn open again. 

_Be quiet,_ he hisses to the smaller demon, with a low and throbbing trill. To another's ears it would be nothing more than nightingale noise; to them it is an instinct. _If he hears, we will never get away_. His native tongue lilts and falls, and it is a struggle to make the human-like mouth obey.

Left Bird bates again and leaves his shoulder, midnight wings beating languidly. _I will stay low,_ he promises, vanishes into the dark castle wood with a few silent flaps. The boy stops moving to watch his companion go, longing chasing black tail feathers into the forest abyss. He could take flight too, easily, but even that tiny flare of ki might alert the Master, ensconced in his warm library. Tonight, of all nights, Kharl would like to be free.

He treads carefully into the forest, white and blue cloak brushing ghost-like over the bed of dead leaves and thousands of crawling creatures. Pale hands reach and run over the scarred bark of trees, serving as an anchor and reminder. He breathes slowly, quietly, and listens to the snap of every twig and every rustle that echoes around him. None are the footsteps of his Master. He is certain enough now to sigh and walk a little faster, a little faster, until he is barreling around the gnarled trunks and flying over looped and ragged roots.

He clears the trees finally with a soaring bound and ringing laughter. "We got away Left Bird!"

"Oh, did you?"

"M-Master!" He spins on a thin heel to see the man leaning nonchalantly against a tree. Left Bird, head hanging low, is perched above him. There is a quiet smile on the older youkai's delicately carven face, and a glitter of amusement in his granite eyes. Waves of black material bunch at his collar, and fall like veils around his heavy midnight boots, blending into nothing where they meet the shadows.

"Skipping out on your studies again, boy?" Kharl cannot help but cringe under the weight of accusation, despite the chuckle that follows over the man's white fangs.

"I was… taking a break?" the apprentice mutters hopefully, knowing full well that "break" is nothing but another word for "escape". The Master knows it too—he laughs, a dark and bubbly sound, into the thick collar of his cloak.

"Hey," confusion flashes across the younger demon's face, "I saw you working in the library right before I left. How could you have gotten here before me?" There is in the words an unspoken question as to what the Master is doing away from his studies at all.

Kharl blinks wide lavender eyes in wonder as the normally pale man's face colors for the barest of moments—and then the look is gone, replaced by a lifted brow and a practiced frown.

"Are you questioning me, boy?"

"No Master," the younger demon drones, "but really," he adds under his breath, "it's not fair to scold me when you skipped out first."

"I heard that. Now I'm doubling your assignment. That makes," the black-haired demon smirks, "four hundred and fifty glasses you owe me."

"Master!" The whine in his voice is too high and boyish for his growing body, but that fact registers only as a niggling embarrassment in the back of his head. "I'm sick of turning water into wine!" The lilac-haired boy resists the urge to stomp his white boot or cross his arms. "You never even let me drink it."

"You're too young to drink."

"I'm a hundred and three years old! Humans can drink at twenty. Twenty!"

"And are dead come sixty. They start their liquor young to forget how soon they are going to die." The apprentice can think of no counter to further his argument and reluctantly falls silent. He stays that way, the barest of pouts marring his brow and puckering his lips, even when the master crosses the distance between them.

The granite-eyed demon is not particularly tall—rather he has a light build that gives him a permanently fragile appearance. Kharl has grown tremendously in the past decade, and as he barely lifts his head to look his master in the face, the angel knows it will not be long before he is the taller of the two. Still, fixed under the steel and silver flame stare of the Alchemist, Kharl realizes that height is of little importance; the master will not budge an inch, even when his "boy" begins to be a man.

"Have you heard the story of the phoenix and the wine pool?" The master pulls him along by a fold of white cloak as he begins to speak and they pick their way along jagged ground to the cliffs that overlook the sea.

"I haven't heard it," Kharl offers the familiar answer monotonously, but a hint of curiosity sparkles in his eyes. The master is notorious for long-winded anecdotes that often depart sharply from reality—yet the stories never fail to be significant and imposing.

X – X – X

_There once was a beautiful white phoenix that lived in the heart of a dark wood. He was revered for his splendor, and worshiped for his purity._ _Each generation, the stories humans told about the phoenix grew and grew. In some years, he was mate to the goddess of stars, bound to a world she could not reach, but still bearing his love's illustrious shine. In other years he was a healer, and a brush of his wings could save any dying soul. It was said that his feathers could grant immortality, and to hear one of his songs was to be forever blessed. _

_But the stories were just that: only stories. The real phoenix was a distant being with a solemn heart. He built his nest deep in the forest and drove away all the other creatures, because he found them all too foolish or too ugly to stand in his presence. _

_Still, adoration for him grew_ _deeper and deeper, until it was no longer adoration, but something cruel. The people were no longer content to watch him fly above them, or to catch glimpses of him in the wood. They decided that, like all songbirds, the phoenix's beauty would be even greater if they could always look upon him. They tried many times to cage him, but the phoenix was, of course, too smart for their human traps, and evaded capture. His heart grew colder, and he realized that no one could be trusted—even the delicate creatures that supposedly loved him did not understand his true desires and thought only of themselves._

_Years passed, and the mortals became more and more determined. The phoenix hid himself away and did not fly, and as he avoided each new trap, he began to long for someone who could truly understand his dreams and feelings. Humans would not do, because in every mortal heart was a grain of discontent, of jealousy. Demons in the wood were too cruel and selfish. There seemed to be no one who could share in the phoenix's visions and hopes._

_And then on a cold and snowy day, a mortal man stumbled across the phoenix's nest. The bird was shocked, and suspecting a trap, tried to take flight. But to his horror, he had not used his wings in so long, and his fire was so very dulled by the icy wind, that he could not fly. _

'_Be still,' the mortal man said, 'I don't mean to capture you.' The phoenix could not believe him of course, because many mortals had lied before, but as he struggled against the snow and his own weakness, the man draped a cloak across him and gave him a brilliant smile._

_In the mortal's smile, the phoenix saw a light he had never seen before, and he felt hope for the first time in many years. Perhaps, he thought, this man can be trusted. So he allowed the man to sit beside him, and told the mortal all his pains. _

'_At first I wanted only to be alone, because it seemed that no one could look at me without wanting something. Everyone asks the impossible of me,' he sighed. 'I just wanted to be alone to do as I pleased. But… I was wrong. Being all alone is silent and empty. More than anything, I want to find someone who can truly understand me. I want to find someone who will love me with asking for anything else.'_

_And then the mortal man left him, and returned to his home in the mortal king's castle. When he told his companions of his meeting with the phoenix, they did not believe him. 'The phoenix talked with you?' they laughed, and refused to hear his story._

'_Why do you want to capture the phoenix?' he asked, and their answers were the same:_

'_So that we can love him even more. So that we can appreciate his beauty always.' Mortals promised him, at every turn, that they only wanted to love the bird. _Perhaps the phoenix is confused?_ the man could not help but wonder. _These people love him so much they can think of nothing else._ And so, the mortal man thought he would have to help the creature understand. _

'_I'll bring the phoenix here!' he swore to his companions as they laughed, 'and then you will see that my story is true.' _

'_A human man cannot hope to catch a phoenix!' the first of his companions laughed. _

'_Maybe if you had a dragon's wit and charm!' the second joked._

'_I know!' howled the third companion, the foolish king of the mortals, 'if you can bring the phoenix here before me, I will give you my crown.' _

'_And I will call you the lord with the wit of dragons,' his companions brayed with laughter. They raised a mocking toast to him. 'All hail the Dragon Lord!'_

_The man knew that he could not just ask the phoenix to travel to the human's village with him, because the bird had a deep hatred of those who had tried to capture him so many times._ He simply does not understand! _the man thought._ I do not want to trick him, but how else can I take him to the people who love him? _So the man set out to do what generations before him had failed to. For days on end he thought and thought of every plan he could, and endured the laughter of everyone who had heard his story. Finally, one night he collapsed at a pub, and stared into his glass of dark red wine. _

'_It's truly impossible!' he murmured. 'He will use magic if I try to catch him.' And the man on the surface of the wine sighed in commiseration. For a long time, he stared at his reflection in the glass, mimicking each of his actions, but looking so very different in that dark color. 'I have it!' he shouted and ran toward the castle as fast as he could._

'_My lord, I know how I may catch the phoenix and bring him here!' he promised. 'If you will give me enough wine to turn a small lake red, I can most certainly catch him!'_

_At first, the king refused. Why should he give so much wine for an impossible task? But finally he relented, after the man swore he would pay back every bottle if he was not able to bring the phoenix back to the city. So the man took the many barrels of wine, and in the dead of night, carried them to a small pool near the phoenix's nest. He emptied them all into the clear water until the entire pond was red. At last, the man crept back and hid in the trees to wait for morning._

_As luck would have it, the phoenix came the next morning to drink at the pool. At first, he could not believe his eyes, for the bird had never, in his long life, seen red water. He stared long and hard at it, and a red phoenix stared back. There was pain the bird's crimson eyes, and the white phoenix felt very sorry for the other creature. _

'_Why do you look so sad?' he asked. _

_The red phoenix echoed, 'why do you look so sad?' _

'_There is no one who truly loves me,' the white phoenix sighed, 'they only love my music and my magic.' _

'_There is no one who truly loves me,' repeated the crimson-eyed phoenix. _

'_I could love you,' the white-firebird cried. _

'_I could love you,' the red-firebird answered. _

_And the white phoenix knew, somewhere inside him, that the bird staring back was only a reflection, a piece of himself, but he desperately wanted to believe that there was someone capable of understanding him. _Perhaps he is not me but someone else, perhaps this red water is a portal to another world. _And he dipped his beak gently into the wine pool, in hopes that it might take him to a different place, take him to the world where the red-firebird was also alone. He did not move at all—instead, heat pooled up inside him and did not die, and for the first time in many years, the phoenix knew a bit of happiness, because it felt as if the red-firebird had reached across the vast distance between them, and given him a little bit of light and warmth again. _

_He laid down beside the pool when he had drunk his fill and fell into the deep and dreamless sleep that only wine can bring. When he was sure the bird would not awaken, the man came out of hiding, and gently wrapped the phoenix in his thick cloak. _

'_I will take you to the people who truly love you,' the man promised, and brought the phoenix to the castle. 'Look, I have brought him to you, as I said I would. Now you may all adore him as you've longed to.' And the king, stunned into disbelief, was forced to keep his word, and hand his crown to the man. _

_That night, throngs of people came to stare in wonder at the sleeping bird, and hundreds of wine glasses were raised in a devout toast. 'Hail the Dragon Lord, who brought the phoenix down!' _

_When the phoenix woke the next morning, he found himself bound in a glittering golden cage, while a sea of mortals stared on in anticipation. _

'_Sing for us, sing for us!' they called. 'Let us have your beautiful feathers!' And as the new lord listened to his people, he began to feel as if he had made a terrible mistake. The phoenix looked over the heads of the mortals to find the man he had trusted on the throne, and he knew that his freedom was gone forever. When the man saw the phoenix bow his head and heard him sing, he knew without doubt that his trust in the people had shattered something precious. _

'_Beautiful, beautiful!' The mortals wept at the phoenix's song, cried for more. The Dragon Lord was the only one among them who heard not only the glorious notes, but the suffering that fueled them. _

_Much later, when at last the crowds left the castle, the Dragon Lord went to talk to the phoenix. _

'_Forgive me,' he pled, 'I did not know. They said they meant to love you! I wanted to make you happy.' _

'_If this is love and companionship, I was wrong. I do not want it. Being alone forever is paradise compared to the life you have brought me. If you wish to make me happy, let me free.' _

'_I cannot,' the Dragon Lord looked then as if he might shed tears. 'Your presence has brought a peace to the people; they are all so truly happy. The kingdom's enemies are laying down their weapons for a chance to hear you sing. Seeing you has given the people hope, even in our dark world.'_

'_Then I will sing for you,' the phoenix said, and his voice was colder than the Dragon Lord had ever heard before. 'I will sing my trust, so that you will remember, every day, how you betrayed it. For these bars and these chains, I will never forgive you.' _

_Perhaps their lives would have gone on that way for many years: the phoenix mourning his freedom and the dragon mourning his choices, but each prayed one night for a way to undo their sorrows—and those prayers were answered. The goddess of stars, who had loved to watch the phoenix fly, and who had also loved to watch the dragon bring smiles to the faces of the people, descended from her place in the heavens. _

'_Come with me to my kingdom,' she smiled for them. 'There you will know eternal freedom, you will brighten the lives of millions, and you will be truly loved.' She swept them both into a warm embrace and carried them to the night sky, where she laid one beside the other. They became stars under her touch, and high above the world of mistakes and mistrust, they began to shed light._

X – X – X

"And that is where they are laying even now," his master murmurs, pale fingers tracing first a bird's cross outline, and then the sinuous form of a serpent in the night sky, "the phoenix and the dragon." Kharl's lilac eyes strain to follow the point, scanning hundreds of pin-prick stars for the proper forms. He finds the constellations at last, twinkling merrily, side by side.

"Master…" the boy mutters, contemplating the shape, "the phoenix has his back turned on the dragon."

"Yes," the older demon smiles wanly, "it seems that he never did forgive the Dragon Lord."

"Why did you tell me this story?" Kharl ignores the tickle of sand and grass across his cheek as he turns to look at the Alchemist. In his voice is more than the simple question he meant to ask—there is sadness there, and sadness presses hard against his heart as he sees spots of starlight reflected in his master's dark eyes.

"Don't," the man reaches a hesitant hand and brushes his fingers through the tangled lilac bangs that dance across his apprentice's cheeks like spider webs. "Don't ever let them trick you. Don't let a thing like love be your downfall."

"I won't," Kharl promises, but his lilac eyes trace the phoenix and the dragon, circling silently above him.

* * *

**Theme 35: Hold My Hand  
**_I took a nervous step inside the door, and the brush of my boot on linoleum floor clashed with the beep of her heart monitor._


	35. A Sleepless Night Becomes

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme**: 35, Hold My Hand  
**Characters**: Kharl, the Star Princess, cameos for Rune, Rim Kaana, and Grinfish  
**Pairing**: Kharl/Star Princess  
**Warnings**: Suicide attempt and overall sappiness.  
**Need to Know Info**: This is an AU, hee hee!  
**Title Provider**: Paper Thin Hymn (Anberlin)

_A Sleepless Night Becomes Bitter Oblivion_

* * *

It was raining: miserable, sleet-like rain that blanketed the world in a steady beat and a silvery sheen. The roads were slick with oil and ice, but I paid that little attention. The digital watch on my wrist flashed 3:05 AM, lighting the black interior of my car rhythmically with a sickly neon-blue light. The radio sung and skipped, fading in and out of static as the car wound along the hillside road. My fingers tapped nervously, almost of their own accord, on the steering wheel—in time with the music, my head pounded. I had worked without sleep the last few nights; each guitar chord slammed inside my skull like a hammer. I ached to turn the radio off, but it was the only thing keeping me awake. 

_…When your only friends are hotel rooms…_  
_…These roads never seemed so long…_

There was never any time to stop. One second there was only the dark road and the silver-black rain, and then next second there was _her_. She filled my vision impossibly, a flash of light and oblivion. Her rose eyes closed, her dripping pink locks shone in the headlights, her coral lips lifted in a smile that shone with relief. Then the car struck her body with a sickening crack and a screech of brakes.

_Oh God…_ My throat was full of bile and fear and the words died on my tongue. I threw the car door open, hinges screaming an echo of my desperation. The rain was heavy and cold on my back and face; my lilac hair fell limp and wet against the back of my neck, but I hardly felt it. _Oh God…_ Ice choked the side of the road where the car had skid; I slipped in it and fell. My hands tore raw on the asphalt, my face came level with the front bumper of the car—there was blood over the broken headlight.

I pulled her body out from beneath the car, trying and failing to still the trembling of my hands. Her white dress was black with dirt and torn, blood bloomed over her chest and stained the long hair that tangled in my fingers and spilled around her. For a long moment, I was sure she was not breathing—and then she coughed once, a ragged, wet sound that sent a trickle of blood down her pale chin. Rose eyes, clouded by pain, half opened. She made an effort to focus on me and failed.

"It hurts… It wasn't…. supposed to…" She was alive. The terror or the guilt or _something_ inside me cracked, and I felt as if I might cry in relief, in regret. I left her lying there, half-dead eyes looking up into the rain, as I tore the cell phone from my briefcase. My fingers pounded on the lit keys, drops of silver hit the screen and rebounded.

"There's been an accident. Yes. She's going to die if you don't get someone here now! Highway 35. Near the summit of Mount Emphaza… Yes. No…" I hung up sharply, cutting the last of the 911 operator's useless questions off. Who cares about the make of my car—there weren't any other cars on the road! I stumbled back to her side, ripping off my jacket and pressing it to the open wound in her side. Her eyes stared upward blankly, and I knew she had fallen back into unconsciousness. "Oh God…" I murmured again, holding her bloody form off the icy ground.

The distance thump of helicopter rotors tore my attention from trying to find other injuries on her body, and I peered anxiously through the haze of rain. The helicopter blazed over our heads, sending the rain down in a furious draft that tugged at my clothes and her hair. Too slowly, it settled on the road, and like an army, a team of emergency medics swarmed out of it. She was pulled from my arms, inspected, attached to an IV of what must have been morphine, garnered with an oxygen mask. The strange woman looked impossibly fragile and tragic, too pure to be painted in red and black. With daring haste, the medics wheeled her away on a stretcher toward the white helicopter, whose metal sides seemed to sparkle and heave in the rain.

"I'm coming too," I insisted before I even realized what I'd said.

"I'm sorry, sir," a soft-faced, blond medic said to me, "but in a situation like this you'll need to remain at the crime scene and complete a police report…" _Crime scene? The woman had stepped out in front of my car on purpose! _

"I'm coming too," I repeated, and the determination and cold assurance in my voice seemed to make him suddenly unsure.

"You really aren't allowed…" I stepped into the helicopter behind the stretcher and left the blond nurse gaping in the rain.

X-X-X

The clock ticked again, and the sound echoed overly loud in the silent ICU waiting room. There were no windows, but it was nearly five-thirty in the morning, and I could imagine the skyline beginning to lighten—a warm, dark cobalt blue, with shades of grey and then gold. I hoped for a moment that the rain had stopped, but then the thought of the sun rising over blood on the road turned in my stomach. I prayed that it would rain without stop, hard enough to wash away all the mistakes that had been made that night.

"Renkin? Kharl Renkin?" A nurse wielding a clipboard stared through the room, and I stood to a flurry of whispers. My name was not unknown: a good majority of people had heard about my recent ambitious business merger with Draqueen's entertainment enterprise. I followed the short woman down a sterile, white hallway. There were cheery and colorful paintings scattered liberally over the walls, but they made the place only more chilling.

"This is an unorthodox situation, as I'm sure you can imagine." The nurse had pink hair, almost as pink as the woman I'd hit, but she had a hard attitude around her that seemed entirely different from the fragile aura I'd felt holding the rose-eyed girl. "Normally, only family are allowed to enter the rooms in this unit, if at all. However, in light of your dismissal of a large group of hospital rules already, and your rather _generous_ donation to our facilities, the staff has decided to turn a blind eye in this particular incident."

"Is she… awake?"

"Yes, but…" The short nurse shook her head and opened the door for me, turning back and vanishing down the hallway as if she had never been at all. I took a nervous step inside the door, and the sound of my boot on linoleum tile clashed with the beep of her heart monitor. As if frightened, she turned her head quickly to look at me—I could tell the motion pained her because she winced, and then crystalline tears pooled in her roseate eyes.

"Please… forgive me… I'm so sorry… that I involved you in this." Each breath seemed to pain her.

"I should have been watching more carefully."

"No! I… I wanted to die."

"That would have been a terrible waste," I murmured and sat in the room's armchair. The shabby pink material smelt heavily of sterilizer, but I ignored it in favor of watching her. They had coated her cheeks in butterfly bandages, where the road and glass had left scratches. The blue-grey hospital gown dwarfed her thin frame, and her delicate fingers knotted nervously in the thin peach blanket draped across her bed.

"I feel like my life has been nothing but a waste." A sharp rap on the doorframe stopped me from asking what she meant, and a green-haired man in a white coat stared tepidly at me.

"Tenno-san," he addressed the broken woman finally, "the X-ray results have just come in." He sighed heavily and switched his clipboard between his hands several times. "The good news is that only the femur of your left leg was broken, and the break was clean and will heal given time."

"Is there bad news?" I managed to mutter, despite my constricted throat.

"Yes," he tried to offer a comforting smile that failed miserably, "the wound in your side is far deeper than we expected. A large piece of glass cut through the flesh between your fourth and fifth ribs, and is embedded in your left lung. Right now, it is being kept still by the amount of muscle it penetrated—but if it were to somehow be moved, it is possible that your lung would collapse. Furthermore, the glass cut through an artery that runs from your lung to your heart. If the blood were to begin to hemorrhage at the site of penetration, it is likely that any clots formed there would break free, be pulled into your heart, and cause cardiac arrest."

I slumped back against the wall, and my hands on the arms of the chair were shaking. He stared sharply into her bruised face. "If we do not surgically remove the shard of glass and close up your lung, you will die."

"That's…" Fear flashed briefly in her face, and then it was gone, replaced by a fierce acceptance. "Please do not perform the surgery. I would like to die."

"Why?" I asked, no longer able to sit quietly. "Why did you try to take your life?"

"I wanted to make at least one decision… of my own."

"Dying isn't a decision. It's a way out." My voice was cold, and I regretted the tone when she flinched.

"That's… what I wanted. A way out of the life that chosen for me."

"And you can't tell me that the thought of being dead pleased you…"

She shifted, could not meet my eyes. "I…"

"If you want to be free of the life you had, you should have tried to change it yourself. Stepping in front of cars isn't going to solve anyone's problems," I muttered, trying hard to keep the vapid emotion from my voice.

"But I…"

"A person brave enough to face death should be brave enough to face life." I mustered a true smile, my first for the night. "And, though I don't even know your name, I have a feeling that you _can_ change things. You certainly changed my routine a few hours ago."

"I can change things…" she repeated, in that lulling, quiet voice of hers.

"Tenno-san, the hospital intends to call your mother to discuss the surgery with her," the green-haired doctor suddenly interjected.

"Don't," she tried to cry, but it came out a choked whisper. "I'm going to… make my own decisions..." She stared at me for a long moment, roseate eyes unsure. I could almost see her warring against herself, and I smiled gently.

"I don't know you..." she said at last, "but I _want_ to believe you. I'm so foolish…"

"Will you undergo the surgery Tenno-san?" the doctor pushed gently.

"I… I will." she smiled weakly, and even that was beautiful. "It's my decision... to live… to change myself." The green-haired man nodded and hurried into the hall, most likely to prepare the gurney and operating staff.

"Thank you—" tears shone in her gaze as she looked up at me, but the drops did not fall, "—for saving me." The distant, approaching sound of the medics rung down the hallway.

"Will you… Will you hold my hand?" she asked, and her voice was tremulous and hopeful. The medical staff crowded into the room and she was lifted gently onto the stretcher.

I took her delicate fingers in mine and answered finally, "I would like nothing more."

* * *

**Theme 36: Precious Treasure  
**_The Earth Dragon Knight smiles again, a little smug, and bites into another strawberry._


	36. You had Something to Hide

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme**: 36, Precious Treasure  
**Characters**: Avis, Thatz  
**Pairing**: None (No, this is not Thatz/Rath.)  
**Warnings**: OOC?  
**Need to Know Info**: Ummmm… I've never written Thatz before? I'm sorry if he's totally off! Why do I have such an obsession with strawberries in my writing? I don't like strawberries at all…  
**Title Provider**: Policy of Truth (Depeche Mode) 

_You had Something to Hide… Should have Hidden it, Shouldn't You?_

* * *

The human boy smiles, but there is something distant and benevolent in it: a subtle wisdom, a familiar amusement. Avis sighs and brushes the carefully stacked mountain of strawberry tops off his clipboard. 

"You really aren't supposed to eat in this office."

"Youkai aren't supposed to enter the Dragon Castle."

The doctor stiffens; his grip on the pen tightens enough to crack the nib. The Earth Dragon Knight smiles again, a little smug, and bites into another strawberry. For a moment, Kharl considers lying, considers faking insult—but the boy's eyes are steady and sharp, and he knows there is no point. _And they said he was the least threatening of the Knights..._

"How did you know?" The real question, _what do you intend to do_ goes unspoken. For a moment, the moss-haired boy stares at him, the small fruit caught between his teeth and staining his lips red.

"You're just like Rath," the Dragon Knight replies. Kharl stiffens again, suddenly wary. What sort of connections had the human drawn? "You get the same look on your face. Even when you're smiling, there's something in your face telling everyone to stay away. Rath does that same thing, like he's got a wall around him and won't let anyone in. And," Thatz laughs, leaning lazily against the wall, "you've looked over your shoulder three times since I walked in. All three times, there's been nobody in the hall right outside."

"How are nerves proof of my being a demon?"

"There's been no one in _this_ hall, but all three times there have been people two halls over, walking past your bedroom. A human couldn't have heard them."

"So how could you have?" Avis's blue eyes narrow in intrigue and the first stirrings of dislike. The Knight taps the wall beside his head with an errant hand.

"Sensed the vibrations. Comes with the Earth magic."

"You're very observant."

"I'm a thief, I have to be." Silence presses for moment, broken only by the wet sounds of crunching strawberries. Kharl is not sure where the human is getting all the fruit—his supply seems endless.

"And your footsteps," the boy adds, from nowhere, "they're too light. More like floating than walking. Zouma's like that too…" His voice trails off into private musing.

"Do you intend to forcibly expel me from the castle?" Humor is evident in the doctor's voice as it slides over his false, dull canines. The Earth Knight blinks green-brown eyes once, as if the idea had never crossed his mind (but surely it must have). Then he lifts a bandaged hand and waves it gently.

"Did you poison me?"

"No," Avis replies, confusion marring his brow.

"And you didn't hurt Ruwalk when he came in for cold medicine, or the Dragon Fighters when they came to get their scrapes patched up. You healed Kaistern's injuries. If you're attempting to be a threat, you're not doing a very good job."

Kharl cannot help but chuckle in response. "Perhaps I am biding my time."

"And making sure we're all in top form while you're at it? I don't think you're here to cause trouble," his nose wrinkles and his wide eyes narrow in thought, "after all, you'd be a bit more subtle about it if you were." A boot taps the table leg mindlessly. "I didn't peg you as the blatantly obvious type."

"Perhaps I'm using blatancy to lull you all in a sense of false security."

The Knight levels a flat glare in Avis's direction before sighing. "You're my doctor. If you turned around and killed me, I'd be pretty pissed." The inexplicable smile on the boy's face is conspiratorial and open. For a moment, Kharl finds himself hopelessly confused.

"For a Dragon Knight, you stance on demons is—"

"Too friendly?" The exasperation in Thatz's voice makes it clear just how often he's heard those words. "I'm not like Rune or Rath…" he pauses and frowns, "I don't have a reason to hate _all_ demons. Some of you aren't so bad. Really, it seems like a waste of energy to hate a whole race." He flips a strawberry in the air and catches it carefully.

"And you know," his gaze is heavy and too serious for the carefree demeanor he exudes, "it doesn't seem fair to judge people like that. The way a person is born shouldn't decide how everyone else looks at him." And for a moment, the Earth Dragon Knight isn't talking about demons at all. Kharl can see a flicker of insecurity and contempt in his eyes. A smile wipes the boy's face clean.

"And that is why you accept Rath? It's fair?" Avis dumps the strawberry heads into the wastebasket with a disinterested hand. The green-haired boy stares at him for a second, and then his eyes close in lazy content.

"No." He leans back against the wall again. "I accept Rath because he's Rath. He's one of my best friends, though he'd never admit it." There is nothing but sincerity in his voice, and even though he is a Dragon, and even though he is supposed to be an enemy, the boy's declaration is warming. "Maybe that's Rath's problem…"

"Hm?"

"He'll never admit that he's tied to anyone else. He really thinks that he can be free if he cuts himself off from everyone. But every person who cares about you steals a little piece of your heart and keeps it. You sort of belong to every person who loves you, right?"

A little wonder pools in the back of Kharl's mind, but he manages to nod.

"Or maybe Rath's real problem is that too many people love him. So many people want to take a part of him; maybe he's afraid there won't be anything left over?" Thatz laughs once, and the sound is slightly dry.

"Rath is interesting," Avis admits, and that is all he admits.

"He's the Dragon Tribe's treasure. He's really precious to everyone." The words grip Kharl's heart like a fist, because he has said such a similar thing so many times.

"Precious to everyone…" Kharl murmurs.

The boy shifts finally, leaping off the table and wincing at his stiffness. "So you better not be here to cause trouble," he says with a sharp and final note to his voice, "because I'm a thief, and protecting my treasure is what I do."

"You want to protect Rath?"

"I've got a piece of him, don't I? I'm not planning on letting it slip away time soon." With that, the moss-eyed boy is gone, sauntering down the hall as if he hasn't a care in the world.

Kharl cannot help but wonder if he has lost his own piece of Rath forever.

He cleans blood red stains off his desk.

* * *

**Theme 37: Eyes**  
"_I never blamed you." But Kharl wonders if, somewhere inside himself, he did._


	37. How Far Back Should I Have to Go?

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme**: 37, Eyes  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath  
**Pairing**: None  
**Warnings**: Spoilers for volume 25, if no one's read that…  
**Need to Know Info**: None?  
**Title Provider**: Half Pain (Bana) 

_How Far Back Should I Have to Go? Tell Me..._

* * *

_Who are you?_ he wants to ask, but doesn't. He knows after all; who else could those red, red eyes belong to? But _who_ are you, the question repeats, slithers in the back of his mind—because those eyes, reluctant to blink, keep changing.

"Kharl…" The word sounds awkward on those chapped lips, like a crane, testing the tepid waters of a non-existent pool. They break the surface, a heavy weight, and ripple in the air until the stillness is driven completely away. "Kharl…" When there is no hatred in the word it does not sound right, and he wants to tell the boy not to say it and wants to ask him to say it again.

Those eyes are wide and wavering. Like a sparrow, they alight on him, and frightened by their boldness, bate away again. And suddenly, in this moment he has waited forever for, he feels cold. He feels cold and distant and more than acutely aware that they are not the same people anymore. The dark-haired Dragon hesitates, and fear presses in Kharl's throat—because it looks as if the boy will apologize, and if he does, if he does, then something will surely die. It might be the memory of what was or the hope for what should have been, but it might just as easily be his living, beating heart.

The Alchemist tries to smile, but it falters, and he wishes for tears in that moment, because nothing but tears could make such a hollow smile beautiful. "Is it too late?"

"No! I remembered!" The words echo through the garden, sounding more tremulous with each reverberation. The boy brushes melting snowdrops from his cheeks. "I remembered," he insists, but those red eyes are, for a bare second, not his own. Lykouleon's eyes and Lykouleon's blood lie behind the words. "I did remember." The red, red Dragon Amulet hangs still, dull in the grey, impenetrable light of the storm.

Kharl cannot find the right words, and cannot help but wonder if the boy really wants the right words anyway—he has become so accustomed to lies a half-truth might be more warmly welcomed.

"You…" Ruin's gaze shines with desperation. "My servant… I never meant…" The rest of the words die, the fleeting light of perfection in those scarlet eyes dies, just as Ruin died. The boy shifts, cold and uneasy. He looks as if he might try to take the words back, but like so many more important things, they were gone the moment they were born.

"I never blamed you." But Kharl wonders if, somewhere inside himself, he did.

"Thank you." And when the boy smiles it is not his own, but wiser, softer. Perhaps it is the Blue Dragon Officer in those eyes—perhaps it is someone else. The snow continues to fall softly, and the world is nothing but white and red, red.

He closes the distance between them at last, to embrace a precious stranger who is his master and who is some much more. The boy is warm; ever-changing eyes slide closed in content and relief. It is only a loose, unsure touch. There is little of the happiness he hoped for, but there is none of the hatred he feared. It is not a cold embrace, but it is not a familiar feeling.

…_Who_ are you? He cannot forget, cannot ask, and does not want to know.

* * *

**Theme 38: Abandoned  
**_He knows the human word now, for what he is._ Youkai._ It is not what she wants to hear._


	38. Amazing Grace, how Sweet the Sound

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme**: 38, Abandoned  
**Characters**: Kharl, Reina  
**Pairing**: Hints at something maybe like Kharl/OC? Not really…  
**Warnings**: None  
**Need to Know Info**: This is was a gift fic to my wonderful, wonderful friend **Lumikuu**. The OC, Reina, is hers. You can actually read Reina's real story here on under the title **Mirrors**. I changed the character maybe a little bit to fit the story? But she's very fun to write! Thank you for being so lovely Lumi! Also, on another note, in a way, this story could be seen as "the Cloaks chapter that never was"? If you read Cloaks closely, you'll probably notice some things from this theme matching up with early Cloaks background.  
**Title Provider**: Amazing Grace (??)

_Amazing Grace, how Sweet the Sound that Saved a Wretch like Me..._

* * *

He pushes his tiny fingers and sharp claws through the glass as quietly as he can, struggling to watch the street and the window simultaneously. It is late—late enough that the bars have closed and the only people still awake are the homeless. They would not move to stop him, even if they had the strength to.

The glass cracks (too loud for his taste) but the hole is wide enough now, and his hand gropes along the shelf until bleeding fingers brush against a leather cover. With quick and muffled movements he jerks the book through the glass. It is thick and well bound, with gold letters embossed on a dyed-red cover. He cannot read the letters, but he knows the symbol blazoned on the book's face—it is two lines crossed against each other, it is the symbol of the big buildings where they sing in the morning.

"You!" Someone is moving inside the shop now and fear shudders up his spine. He wants to fly but the book is too heavy, so he turns and runs. Behind, the door to the bookstore slams open, golden customer bell twittering in the cold night air. He pounds down the cobblestone street, stealth forgotten, heart pounding in his ears. "COME BACK HERE!"

He is faster than the girl who is following him, but her legs are longer and she seems desperate to catch him. Even with youkai strength, his breathing is ragged as he weaves on aimlessly. There seems no place to hide, and he is afraid to lead her back to his home. The sharp edge of a rock cuts the sole of his bare foot, outlining his steps in blood, but adrenaline pumps as harshly as his heart, and he does not feel it. The girl stops at last, panting and clutching her side.

He hears her hiss as he slides into the maze of alleys that lead to his home, but her words make no sense to him.

X – X – X

It is a nest in the crudest meaning of the term only. He has taken every scrap of material he could from the trash: torn blankets, tattered clothing, broken wicker baskets, planks of wood, yards of string, scratchy feather pillows, sheets of paper, frayed leather tack… It has become a veritable mountain of the dregs of the city, a precariously crafted cave of debris. He has filled it floor to (barely holding) ceiling with all the things he loves. Food, a few days old, peeks from some pockets of the rubbish walls; discarded children's toys litter the lumpy floor; cracked wind charms and dreamcatchers, delicate webs unwinding, clatter as he pushes his way through the ragged sheets draped over the entrance.

He cradles the stolen treasure to his chest before choosing a place for it: nestled between a dirty stuffed bird and a cracked glass globe. It looks as if it was meant to be there, gold-coated words glittering in a light only demon eyes could see.

A footstep clatters on the cobblestones outside and he spins around almost simultaneously.

"What in the—?" It is her. How she followed him he is not sure, but now she is in his territory and he is backed into a corner. Fear and the desire to fight spark and burn and by the time he skitters back out into the alley, he is already losing control. Feathers blossom through the skin of his black, claws scrape against the stones as he stands nearly bent double.

She is at the entrance of the alley, one hand brushing the brick wall to her right. Her starched and dull brown cotton dress drifts around her bare knees as she approaches him. A dark glare mars her stiff brow.

"So you're the one who's been thieving my lady's books!" The words sound like garbled noise to him, but there is something threatening in the tone. He hisses sharply, baring his fangs in a clear display of warning. The girl, whose mahogany hair glints green in the moonlight, ignores the noise and does not slow at all. He knows what humans are capable of, the weapons they are adept at hiding—he is afraid to step toward her and afraid to retreat and lose the only things that are precious to him. The lilac-haired demon stands his ground, filling the air between them with threats in the old tongue, the only language he knows. His wings slide fully free at last to bate, a clear sign of distress and the intention to fight.

It is the feathers that still her finally. It is the wings, blue-white in the night light, that make her gasp.

"An angel…" she sighs, the air chilling her breath to a cloud of silver mist. "Are you an angel?" Honey-colored eyes, black flecked and shadowed in the dark alley, soften. Her voice is gentle now, but he is no less frustrated and no less protective of his home.

She does not turn and leave. The girl takes another step toward him, something like curiosity lighting on her thin face. She lifts a hand, so very slowly, out toward him, as if beckoning to calm some cornered animal.

"Hello," she whispers, in a voice meant to sooth. "Come here." Shifting to the side, he scratches nervously at the cobblestones. His claws leave deep gouges in the rocks. _If she takes a step closer I will bite that hand._

The girl sighs again, heavily, and backs away. She gives him something like a wistful look and murmurs more words he doesn't understand, turning away in a swirl of skirt and a shimmer of hair in the moonlight. It is a long time before the demon feels safe enough to crawl back into his nest and sleep, burrowing in the feathery down of torn pillows.

X – X – X

The sun is high above, worming through cracks in the ceiling, when she returns. He feels the jarring presence, notes the thick scent of glue and book pages that precedes her. He tears around the draped doorway, snarling and trilling in the demon's tongue.

"Oh shut up," she barks. He knows what "shut up" means. It's what the mortal people yell when they are angry at one another, the words they shout when they want someone to stop speaking. She has told him to be silent, he knows that much. For a moment, indignation and interest spark inside him—but then she unwraps the package she is carrying, and interest wins out easily.

She has brought him another book. Gingerly, she sets it down on the pavement near her feet, and then sits down herself. The rest of her box-shaped bundle is wrapped in napkins, and she unwinds them slowly. He can smell the heady scent of meat and bread before she is even half through.

The food is fresh, far fresher than the demon has had in many weeks—he has been living on scraps. The hungry looks he is shooting the food, and the book, don't go unnoticed by the girl. She offers a smirk and pats the stones beside her.

"If you want it, you're going to have to come over here and get it."

She doesn't intend to leave. He does almost everything in his power to frighten her away, short of actually attacking her. He learned long ago that attacking one human meant retribution from the rest of them.

"You can't honestly expect me to be afraid of you," she laughs. "You look like you haven't eaten in weeks. A good gust of wind could blow you over. For that matter," her nose wrinkles, "you look like you haven't bathed in weeks either." Briefly, he wishes he could understand her. "Just come here you idiot, I'm not going to hurt you." He is very hungry… and the food is getting cold, just sitting there…

She struggles not to laugh at the way he finally approaches her. _Just like a bird,_ she thinks. He comes a few feet and if she even as much as blinks, he goes skittering back, only to dare walking a bit closer the next time around. Finally, when she's tempted to just grab him and sit him down, he comes close enough. She holds her breath as he bends, like a crane, to snatch the food laid out gently on the napkins. For a moment, his eyes meet hers. She is stunned—wavering lilac fills his irises, freckled with lavender. There is something like uncertainty in his eyes, something like dislike, something like curiosity. His gaze is infinitely cold, but there is warmth threatening to pool up, threatening to spill over.

He eats in front of his nest, carefully tearing the meat and bread into small and manageable pieces. _He even eats like a bird_, she giggles. When the boy has finished, he stares at her, with a calculating look. She can tell that he wants the new book very much.

"Well, come and get it." _He can't speak Arinain,_ she has realized, and so she waves the book, a clear temptation. The angel-boy comes warily toward her and she prays they won't have to go through the same thing all over again. He pulls the leather-bound tome out of her hands and holds it close, as if she might try to take it back. But she just dusts off her skirt, smiles, and leaves him alone again.

X – X – X

He loves books. There were some, when he was very young, in the old demon language. He would read them voraciously, though he remembers being scolded for taking them. He does not quite remember who scolded him—it might have been his mother, but he doesn't really remember having one of those. He loves the way the Arinain writing looks: the delicate curving characters, the pointed dashes, the strong, straight lines. He can not read them, the books he's been taking, but he loves to look at them. He can stare at a page for hours, trying to discern even one intelligible word from the mass of beautifully drawn symbols.

There are pictures in the book she has brought him. At first he can only turn in the pages quickly, searching for the stretching pages of text he is used to. There are pages of just text, but the print is much larger than the other books, and there are rarely more than ten lines together. He turns through it twice before he is satisfied that there are no more words to be shaken from the margins. The pictures start on the second page and he begins his real perusal there.

His laughter is too loud, and the young demon tries desperately to stifle it. If he stirs the other occupants of the adjacent allies, it will mean a lot running. He laughs again and bites his tongue. It is stunning, this book—because he can understand it. The story is somewhat broken, just a collection of painted pictures, but he never imagined that books could be funny.

The next day, she comes again, with a new book.

X – X – X

She teaches him to speak, and then she teaches him to read. She does it carefully, one word at a time, making him pronounce each syllable. At first, he cannot grasp the choppy sounds at all, and blends the characters together into one rolling trill that makes her laugh. But he is, and always has been, a very quick student, and soon his accent is barely noticeable. The softening of some consonants, a few vowels carried for longer than average are the only signs that the human language is not his own. Soon enough, he is reading faster than she is, tearing carnivorously through every book he has ever pulled from the trash or stolen from the store she helps run. She never asks for the books back, but she does, eventually, ask his name.

"_Kaaru,"_ he tells her, using the old demon tongue because the sound has no equivalent in the human language.

"Kharl?" She rolls the word around in her mouth, testing it. That's not quite right, he's tempted to tell her, but stays silent. Kharl—it's good enough. He tries the word himself, and thinks he might like having a new name. It just another one of the gifts she has given him.

"Well Kharl," she smiles brightly and sticks her hand out, "my name's Reina." The lilac-haired boy is not quite sure what to do with her hand, which is simply floating there in mid-air. She laughs and snags his hand in her own, shaking it twice.

"What is that for?" Kharl asks, and she rolls her honey eyes, as she often has, at his naivety.

"It's a greeting thing."

"Will become sick if you do that with everyone."

"_You_ will become sick if you do that with everyone," she corrects him. "And besides, I don't shake hands with just anyone."

"I'm special." He smiles as she scoffs.

"You know, for an angel, you're very egotistical." He starts to tell her he is not an angel and stops himself. He knows the human word now, for what he is. _Youkai._ It is not what she wants to hear.

X – X – X

_Otomodachi._ He learns the word that describes them from the book called "dictionary" that she has brought him. The first time he says it to her, Reina blinks for a few seconds and gives him the biggest smile he has ever seen. That night, she sneaks him out of the alleys and into the bookstore's bathroom, where, after a battle of wills and water, she forces him into a tub of freezing water and harsh lye soap, clothes and all.

The tub turns black and she finds, under all that grime, he's very, very pale. And his hair is not the grey she thought it was, but a lilac-white that plumes up as he shakes the water from it and doesn't fall flat again, even when it dries. She makes him scrub his rather ragged clothes until most of the old stains are gone. There are patches of blood that won't come out no matter how hard he tries.

"Now don't get dirty again," Reina scolds with a smile, "I can't have any friend of mine looking like a ruffian."

X – X – X

She comes to visit almost every day, bringing some new book and warm lunch. Kharl's library has grown so much that books are now being stacked in the alley.

"Look what I've got this time!" The girl's vibrant voice leeks into the alley before she even rounds the corner, and she flails the book about so quickly he can't even catch the title. "It's Shelley's new—" He's snatched it before she can finish.

"What's it about?" His nose is already buried in the pulpy pages.

"Very tragic actually." Reina runs a hand through her thick brown hair. She always does that when thinking about things that have disturbed her. "It's about a monster who's been abandoned by his creator. The monster struggles so hard to fit in with the humans, but they shun him at every turn."

His eyes freeze on the page.

"The monster eventually finds one young girl who doesn't turn him away. She's blind, so she can't see how hideous the monster really is, but…"

"How does it end?" He shuts the book; something tightens in his throat.

"The monster dies. The humans burn him alive."

Kharl has never before encountered a book he _doesn't_ want to read. He sets it aside.

"What's wrong?" Honey-colored eyes dart between him and the discarded tome.

"Nothing." His smile is cold. "What did you bring for lunch?"

"You leech!" she growls, but concern is barely concealed in her creased brow and tiny frown.

X – X – X

The next time she comes, Reina does not bring him a book. She brings him a box, wrapped in sheer gauze. When he takes it from her, her cheeks are pink and her smile wavering. It is ebony wood, polished to shining, and he opens it gingerly, careful not to nick the surface with his slender claws.

Music, slow and steady, pours from it. Somewhere in the back of head, the melody seems familiar. In the indented bottom of the box, a porcelain dove turns gently around.

"I saved up for it," she runs her fingers nervously through the strand of mahogany hair that falls over her shoulder. "It reminded me of you."

"Thank you." It is better than any book she has ever brought him.

"But," she sighs, "I can't stay today. My lady's daughter found out I've been leaving the store during lunch and she's furious with me."

It is only after Reina is gone, in a swirl of brown cotton, that he can sense the second presence. It is undeniably human, weak and rotten. Something about it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. His claws flex to points; he can feel his wings threatening to break free. Then she steps around the corner of the alley: a tall, older girl in elegant emerald velvet. Her long hair is red, unnaturally ruby, and her green-grey eyes dance with malicious delight.

"So you are him then," her thin-lipped sneer sets his fangs on edge, "Reina's 'Angel'." She stalks toward him, boot heels scraping on the stones. "She talks about you all the time when she thinks no one is listening." Only the fact that Reina owes allegiance to this woman keeps him from tearing the red smile off her pale face.

The girl pauses to inspect, with a disdainful eye, the stack of books nearest to her.

"_Frankenstein?_" She laughs as she turns it over her hands. "How very ironic." He wants to knock the story away, tear her hand off maybe… As if frozen, he cannot move an inch. "Unlike naïve little Reina, I know exactly what you are. _Demon. _You reek of it." The cold drawl of her voice sends shivers down his spine.

Then, serpent-like, she slithers back, throwing the book at his feet. "Have you read it?" She smiles when the only answer he gives is a snarl. "All good stories end the same way you know—the _monster_ gets exactly what he deserves." In a flash of blood red and decay green she disappears again into the maze of the alleys.

X – X – X

Reina does not come again for days, and when she finally returns, it is in the dead of a frigid night with fear in her eyes and trembling throughout her thin body.

"Kharl," her voice is like a quiet scream, "Kharl!" He meets her half-way down the alley, the music box he had been winding trapped in his hands. "I didn't know! I didn't know! She followed me and she told them! She told them lies and now…" Her words are a staggered rush that he can barely understand. Terror tickles the back of his mind, seemingly without reason. "You have to get away from here!" Her pale hand fists in his shirt. "They're co—"

The pounding of footsteps and the screech of metal on stone rips through her words. The sound echoes up from both the branching alleyways, closer with each moment. Her rapid breathing fills the air between them with silver haze, and there is no way to escape. She cannot fly. He spends a moment too long deliberating—bodies rip through the night and flood his alley.

Their armor and their scowls glint in the light of blazing torches, and he throws Reina behind his white wings, spread like a shield. He is tiny compared to these men, barely as high as their waists draped in royal green and gold sashes.

"That is him." He hears a familiar serpentine drawl. "The demon that stole away my servant and terrorized our store."

"You're wrong!" Reina shouts, "Kharl never meant to cause any harm!"

"Burn them both!" a man cries. "The girl's a sympathizer!" The call pulses through them like a raucous wave and the guards rush to throw their torches in among the books. White smoke begins to rise, mixing with the mists of their breaths. Licking red flames flicker off the multitude of swords, raised and waiting for him to rush toward an escape.

He pushes Reina back from the fire, irony making his stomach turn. The blaze drips along the books like liquid, rolling and turning the pages to ash in seconds. It winds past them when there is no longer any room to back away, and swallows the nest in seconds, dying the alley a sickly orange. He is not strong enough to carry her and the fire is inching closer. _By the flame or by their swords, we're going to die._

The men's faces are a cacophony of sneers and open hatred, and the words "monster" and "rot in hell" flood the air as thickly as the smoke.

"Kharl," Reina coughs into the down of his wing, "you should fly away."

"I can't lift you." Beads of sweat form on his skin and the heat sears his hands and cheeks.

"Go by yourself!" She coughs again, delicate human lungs screaming as she breathes in the haze.

"Why would I do that?" He wants to turn to look at her, but he watches the guards for any sign of movement.

"You idiot!" she cries suddenly, pushing him away from her with all the strength she can muster. "Fly away, now! I never want to see you _here_ again!"

There are crystalline tears in her honey eyes and blood on the lip she has bitten through, and he does not understand. "Get away…" She wants to scream but smoke has burnt her throat. "Please… get away…" There is something like rage in her watery eyes, and something like desperation. The word "no" refuses to leave his mouth and he feels as if he might really die, looking at her fierce and frightened face in the flickering light of the burning books.

He goes.

He leaps over the flames and scales the wall, the claws of his free hand sinking deeply and painfully into brick. He bounds across the roof, hearing the shouts of the men below. More than a few arrows rent the air around him, clattering on the bricks. The men's crashing footsteps follow him, but he whips over the buildings and loses them easily to the alleys and the winding streets.

For a long while he does not stop—because if he stops, it will be the truth that catches him. He abandoned her. He was alone again.

Exhaustion bites into his mind, his lungs and his fragile wings as the adrenaline fades, and he falls weakly in the muddy dirt road. Unwilling still to halt, he staggers on, leaving the human houses behind. The moon, half obscured by clouds, seems to be mocking him. It is so far above all his despair.

There are voices in the night, a soothing distant chorus, and he can see the golden shine of lights farther down the road.

_Through many dangers, toils and snares,_  
_we have already come…_

The gate of the building is wide flung; the glow of the windows cast over the stone steps seems somehow welcoming. He climbs them wearily and collapses, turning to watch the pillar of smoke rising in the grey midnight sky.

_It's all wrong_, he thinks. _The monster is supposed to die, not the girl._ He runs his burnt hands over the music box, ebony and blue in the moonlight. It is the only thing left he realizes as he watches the ashes of everything that was precious to him drift through the black air and fade into nothing.

He winds the music box and is amazed as its solemn melody blends flawlessly with the music that hums through the building at his back. It is the same song and he wishes he could cry.

'_Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far_  
_and grace will lead me home…_

"_What is a beautiful songbird like you doing here in the cold?"_

Kharl's eyes dart upward in fear. There is a man there, in the shadows, talking to him in the old demon tongue. _How did I not sense him?_

"_I did not want you to sense me."_ The smile on the black-haired demon's face is smooth and benevolent as he crosses the distance between him. Dark youki leeks into Kharl's senses, filling his mind and pressing hard against his skull. The power overwhelms him instantly, a crushing weight that makes him shudder uncontrollably. Then it is gone again in a moment, hidden deep within the slender grey-eyed demon towering over him.

The man bends and catches the boy's face in his hand. For a long moment, he inspects as if considering whether or not to buy something in the market. He steps back at last.

"_Come with me."_ It is a demand, not a question. Watching the distant smoke fade, the child does not mind.

When the man turns to walk away, the younger demon follows silently, without stopping to look behind.

"_What is your name?"_ the black-haired youkai asks finally.

"Kharl." He says it in the human tongue. Kharl is who he has become.

* * *

**Theme 39:**** Dreams**  
_When, exactly, did pop-culture deem is necessary for boys to wear stilettos?_


	39. If You Need to Leave the World

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme**: 39, Dreams  
**Characters**: Kharl, Rath, Cesia, Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: None? Maybe Rath/Cesia?  
**Warnings**: General craziness and such... Also, one tiny mention of the volume 25 plot twist.  
**Need to Know Info**: There's a line from Vaughan's "The World" buried in here somewhere...  
**Title Provider**: Imaginary--Origin Mix (Evanescence)

_If You Need to Leave the World You Live In..._

* * *

The place, this time, is beautiful—all soft pastel light and lavender skies. It is something from a child's dream: endless fields of tall grain as thin and pale as parchment waver in a constant breeze that doesn't touch his clothing or the wisps of blue liquid-looking cloud above. The horizon seems unbroken at first glance, but he stares long enough to catch the outlines of trees in the distance. They are constantly shifting and out of his eye-line as if winking in and out of existence. They are glass-like, translucent-limbed, with leaves like the grain—as canvas-colored as paper. 

And Rath is there, standing in the knee-high grass, black-wings whispering against his midnight robe. He is the only solid thing, the only patch of darkness in the immeasurable miles of light. His red eyes scan the horizon, pensive and impatient.

"Who are you looking for?" Kharl's voice is echo-like and amused.

"Father!" The smile on the younger boy's face is brighter than even the sky, and he crashes through the grass to leap into his creator's hold. "Where were you?" the boy pulls back to scold. "It's been three days."

"I've been working."

"Working?" There is a note of worry in the boy's voice as he steps aside to stand next to his servant. "Tell me exactly what you were doing. Don't keep secrets from me anymore." His hand fists harshly in Kharl's sleeve.

"Rath, I'm not keeping secrets. I was developing weather spells to regulate the rainfall for the gardens. Lately it's been very dry and Garfakcy's useless when his vegetables start dying." The Dragon boy laughs, a little maliciously. "I haven't seen him at all in the past two days. I think he's been sleeping in the vegetable patch to make sure his strawberries don't dry up overnight."

"Are you joking?" Rath's quizzical stare makes Kharl chuckle. "He's crazy."

"You make that sound like an insult."

"It is."

"I'm hurt."

"You're not!" But Rath's pout looks a little worried.

"I'm not." The Alchemist pats his master's shoulder gently, feeling a tenseness there that unsettles him. "How have you been lately?"

"Good," Rath half-smiles. "Yesterday Rune and I had a whole conversation, just the two of us."

"That's not normal?"

"No, he talks to me… but since _that_ happened…" Rath's eyes are suddenly half-lidded and downcast, his mouth a thin, unsure line, "it seemed like he was avoiding being alone with me."

Kharl starts to tell the dark-haired demon that that was not true, and that his friends would accept him no matter what—but he stops himself abruptly. Rune probably _was_ avoiding Rath. As idealistic as those Dragons loved to act, they were not infallible, and camaraderie paled in the face of natural fear.

The Alchemist settles for a weak smile and "he'll come to trust you." They both pause to pray those words are true.

"But yesterday we talked a lot. Rune's pretty easy to get along with when he's not trying to bash your face in… We talked about Draqueen and how much we'd like to tear Nadil into little pieces and feed him to Shydeman—"

"Ooh, I'll help!" Rath gives his father a level stare that plainly states he'd be more hindrance than help on a battlefield.

"We talked about Thatz… and then we really talked. Rune doesn't let it show, but he's grieving. The death of the Faerie Elder, the destruction of the Faerie forests…" The boy's red eyes are dull with guilt. "The war hit him harder than any of us."

"We destroyed the life he spent centuries protecting and took away any chance of restoration." Even Kharl feels it now: the pressing weight of how they ruined the world.

"Yeah!" Rath suddenly jerks out of his slump, face alight with something like desperation. "Yeah, he did spend centuries! He's like an old geezer! He might even be older than Lykouleon or you."

"I resent that comment—don't link me in any way with the words 'old geezer'."

Rath pinches the paler demon's arm playfully. "White hair, no fashion sense, pop-culture clueless, nasty habit of saying 'when I was your age…' Sounds like a geezer to me."

"I'd tell you to respect your elders more, but that'd be like asking to have my words thrown back in my face," the Alchemist smirks. "Besides, you really aren't one to pick on _my_ fashion sense. I've seen some of the things you've been wearing lately. When, exactly, did pop-culture deem is necessary for boys to wear stilettos?"

"Shut up. Cesia and Rim Kaana have teamed up against us."

"Speaking of them, how is everyone else holding up? I'll probably come back to the castle soon…"

"Cesia is fine. She's searching for a way to revive Crewger. Thatz and Bierrez have been looking pretty bad lately though. Without twelve hours a night, Thatz is a zombie, and demons have been causing havoc left and right. No one's getting any rest.

"Bierrez really isn't cut out for all the Red Officer paperwork. And you can tell he's trying hard to get along with Ruwalk and Tetheus…"

"You could be more helpful to Bierrez."

"Helpful?" The word sounds odd, coming from Rath's mouth. "I don't wanna do his paperwork!"

"Maybe if you caused fewer catastrophes, there'd be less paperwork for him to do."

"But catastrophe is my middle name!"

"No it's not. Heren(1) is your middle name."

"Huh?" Rath blinks.

Kharl can't help but laugh as Rath stands frozen, mouth gaping, beside him.

"You never told me that!"

"It was Ruin's middle name. I just never felt it was important for you." Rath looks away, and the sound of his boots against the pulpy grass is distant and hollow.

"I'm still him. I am still him."

"No," Kharl shakes his head slowly. "You're Rath Illuser," he catches the boy in a gentle embrace, "and that's more than enough."

"I don't like it when you lie to me." Rath's words are muffled by folds of a white cloak.

X – X – X

"Go fly," Kharl mutters finally, giving the smaller demon a light push.

"You're not coming?"

"I might break my back, since I'm such an old geezer…"

"You're not that old!"

"Oh, so my age depends on what you feel like doing?"

Rath levels a pleading look, full force, on his father.

"I have more fun watching you." There is a momentary war waged between lilac and crimson eyes, and then Kharl settles easily in the tall grass and Rath stomps off toward the trees.

"It's no fun without you."

The distance to the horizon is not as long as it looks; in seconds Rath reaches the strange glass trees. He wraps a hand around the tallest of them, claws sinking into the translucent material as if it is real wood and not glass at all. He scales it effortlessly, canvas-colored leaves brushing against his cheeks and catching in the folds of his cloths.

His father is a white stain on the unbroken purple horizon, ivory wings still despite the steady breeze. Rath pauses for a moment to watch the other man, curled in the wheat, white feathery hair outlining his delicate face—the Alchemist looks young and fragile and for a moment Rath is overcome with fear. It seems as if any gust of wind, any misplaced blow would be enough to tear the man to shreds.

Then an ash spell blooms on his right shoulder, carrying his father's voice and an audible smirk.

"You'll wake up eventually. Don't waste what's left of the night sitting in a tree."

Rath remembers quickly that his father is an insufferable, incorrigible genius, and the only thing Kharl really needs to survive is that uppity housekeeper's cooking. With a huff, the dark-winged demon bats the spell away and throws himself from the tree limb.

The wind rushing against his face is a shock of liberation and he struggles to keep his eyes open. The ground jumps upward sharply, a roiling paper sea—at the last moment he tears his wings open, catching the air and then an updraft that carries him easily into the lilac sky. The hem of his dark cloak billows behind, a fanned raven's tail.

For a few moments, the boy is content to soar in endless circles, thermals warming his face and the hands he has tucked tight against his chest. Then suddenly soaring is not enough; Rath plunges toward the earth again, spinning, rolling, opening first one wing and then the other to cut jagged lines in the air.

He stops short, beating his wings once, twice, and then catching another updraft. He goes through the entire thing again, brushing the ground in an effort to frighten his father. Kharl remains staunch, plucking paper daisies in mock disinterest.

"Chichi-ue!" Rath rages over the wind and is ignored, save the almost devious smile that lights on Kharl's lips.

"Did you hear something?" the Alchemist asks the daisy in his hand—it is to his immense surprise that the daisy answers back, petaled-head folding like mouth.

"I haven't got ears you dolt." Then, as if it had never spoken, the flower goes as limp as wet parchment again. Kharl reminds himself to ask Rath later what exactly inspired him to dream talking paper flowers—or paper flowers at all.

His musing is cut short by a pair of insistent hands, fisting in the down feathers near his shoulders. Rath hangs upside-down from a tree that had not been there before, knees hooked tightly around a glossy limb.

"Come on!" Rath tugs at him.

"That hurts you know."

"If you don't fly I'm going to wake myself up right now." Rather than being sweetly childish, the boy's voice is demanding and petulant and Kharl can hear the underlying message. Rath's red eyes are threatening anger.

"All right," the Alchemist says finally, though he would rather sit and contemplate than lose his thoughts to the wind.

Rath pulls himself to a crouch on the tree branch as the lilac-haired man stands up at last, brushing invisible dirt from his immaculate white cloak. The younger demon's crimson eyes are unblinking, waiting to catch the moment his father's feet will pick effortlessly from the earth. The older man doesn't fly like a bird—he seems weightless, as if the light breeze is enough to carry him. Rath leaps off and catches another thermal, beating his wings lazily to catch up with the other demon.

It is a long while that they are side-by-side in silence, feeling the firm press of the wind under their wings, holding them back and up, like swimming through lilac water.

Rath's dreamscape shifts endlessly as they cross it, fields of paper wheat blurring into rivers as smooth and pastel blue as the dappled sides of robin eggs. Hills, low and grey, flit across the horizon and then vanish as the boy thinks of other things. Scattered trees become glass forests, shining in the light of the luminous, sun-less sky.

Finally, from a soft golden haze, pure chalk and marble walls rise stately and slowly. The dark-haired boy folds his wings in a shallow swoop, an ebony flicker among the rippling castle banners, and crashes lightly onto the pinnacle of a turret. Clawed hands sink sharply into the stone to stop the boy from pitching forward; black wings bate behind him like an extension of his midnight cloak.

Kharl lands on a taller turret in an almost inaudible rustle of feathers.

"Are you resting Rath?"

"Thinking."

"Why won't you use youki? It would be much easier to fly." Rath doesn't answer and doesn't look at his father. His lips are a thin line; his eyes are narrow. "Why the Dragon Castle?" Rath doesn't answer that question either and they perch in silence for a long moment, looming like gargoyles or angels over the unbroken and shadowless castle.

"Do you think I could really be a Dragon Lord?" Rath still won't turn his eyes from the far-away horizon; the red irises waver like tremulous drops of blood.

Kharl knows what he wants to say and what Rath wants to hear.

"I think," he murmurs at last, watching the gold and navy banner of the Dragon Castle twist in the wind, "you would be quite poor at it." Now the boy's head snaps around, betrayal and something like fear and frustration combined blazing in his eyes.

"But in the last era," Kharl taps his bottom lip with an errant finger, "Dusis has suffered four outbreaks of mass genocide, an attempted coup d'etat, the loss of two weapons of mass destruction, severe breakdowns of diplomacy and internal affairs, several deaths of high-ranking political officials, utter annihilation of the capital building and the pollution of the reputation of the entire Dragon race. I highly doubt your reign could ever be worse than Lykouleon's."

For a moment, Rath is quiet, and then he laughs a little stiffly. "I never wanted to be a Dragon Lord anyway."

"You'd have a dedicated staff at the very least. I can't imagine your new knights being quite the hassle you were for Lykouleon."

"Saabel's as freaky as Rune."

"Yes, but Gil and Thatz would swear their loyalty to you in a heartbeat."

"I don't care." And there's something in Rath's eyes begging the older demon to forget he'd ever mentioned being a Dragon Lord at all.

"Then why…" Kharl stops himself from asking why Rath brought it up to begin with. They're both caught in the tide of inevitability and it doesn't matter how good or bad Rath will be, who will follow him—he doesn't have a choice.

"Will you be on my side?" the boy mutters, unable himself to give up the vein of conversation that is pressing hard inside his mind. "I'll open an alliance with Arinas."

"Don't make promises you won't remember when you wake."

"This time, I'll remember." There is a fierce determination in the fangs that abuse his lower lip.

"I don't like it when you lie to me." Kharl feels cruel saying it. He moves to apologize but Rath is already cutting him off, a cold hand crushing down on his wrist and ripping him from his perch on the spire.

The dark-haired demon pulls him sharply upward without speaking. Below, the Dragon Castle crumbles in a hail of stone and smoke but no sound.

X – X – X

Rath's face looks pensive and stormy, and the wind beneath their wings is somehow no longer comforting. It is colder now. The silence is heavy, but he can almost hear Rath's mind tearing itself apart with thoughts; he wants to say something but saying nothing is safer.

The landscape is suddenly less welcoming, the glass forests are scored by fire and the pastel rivers run black with ash. The sky is darkening, flickering with jagged shocks of blood-red lightning.

At last he can no longer stand it, and Kharl jerks Rath around (a swirl of black against the roiling horizon like the flicker in a raven's eye) and catches the boy's hands in a bone-shattering grip. For a moment Rath looks frightened—the decadent smile on his father's face is not reassuring—and then Kharl throws him violently toward the earth.

There is not enough wind in his lungs to scream and Rath's claws sink deeply into the pale flesh of his father's hands as they both begin to drop from the sky. And then the force has brought him in a flawless circle above the other demon and they are end over end, turning, falling, rushing, rolling toward the ground in an unstoppable and endless ring, a compass revolving around their clasped and bloody hands. Their wings strain against the rush, wide open and rippling. Black, white, black, white—the colors flash under his eyes like two halves of the divine, like Yin and Yang and then they blur together until nothing is left of either half but all-encompassing silver. The sky is beneath, beside, above him and the gravity seems confused as it pulls them momentarily skyward, momentarily side-ways.

His father is smiling, a pure and unassuming smile, and the wind is not the only thing that makes Rath's breath stick in his throat. There is an angel falling beside him, over him. The pain of the claws locked into the tender flesh between his fingers is non-existent, and he can't hear anything but the pale-eyed man's laughter.

"Was it always like this?" he calls, but the wind steals the words away. _Were you always this innocent, chichi-ue? Were you always this happy back then?_

"Rath!" the white-winged demon shouts through a glittering smile. "It's time for me to wake up!"

He can't tell the earth from the sky and they might just as easily tumble eternally upward as hit the ground.

"You've got to let go now!"

"I don't want to!" But the lilac-eyed man is already slipping away, claws sliding from flesh, fingers winding free. And their endless fall, endless loop, is shattering and so is the world and the focus of everything is suddenly off. The blood from their out-stretched hands stains the air, tracing a single crimson crescent in the lilac sky. "I'll remember this time, I will."

Kharl's smile is a little sad as he fades into nothingness, like ash on the wind.

_I saw eternity the other night, like a ring of pure and endless light…_

X – X – X

"AHHHH!" Rath shoots up in bed, cold sweat tracing his temples and chest.

"Rath, are you all right?" Cesia is shouting through the door, pounding against it none too gently. "Let me in!"

He stumbles out of bed and unlocks the door (not that he remembered locking it), falling to rest on the frame.

"Why did you scream?" Cesia's golden eyes are narrowed in concern and frustration, as if she expects she'll have to pry an answer from him. "Was it another nightmare?"

"Yeah," he mutters, feeling his heartbeat slowly beginning to calm.

"Did you remember what it was about this time at least?"

"No," there's an echo of laughter and paper flowers in his mind, "but I think it was really weird."

X – X – X

"It's such a beautiful morning!" the Alchemist trills, pouring his tea with a barely restrained smile. Garfakcy's glower is almost caustic, but it sloughs right off the lilac-haired demon. "I had a wonderful dream last night!"

"Did it involve you completing weather spells and saving my strawberries?" The violent edge to the boy's voice goes utterly unnoticed.

"I don't think so," the demon looks sincerely considerate, "but I can't really remember, so maybe it did."

"How do you know it was wonderful if you can't remember it?"

"Just a feeling." There is a flash of smiles and lilac skies in his mind.

* * *

Notes:  
(1) - **Heren** (Hay-ren) is Elvish for "good fortune". The joke lies in the fact that "Rath" is the Gaelic word for "good fortune". So Ruin's middle name could also have been written as "Rath".

* * *

**Theme 40: Rated**  
"Ooh, I am _not_ too sexy for that popcorn!" Chi crowed.


	40. I'm Too Sexy!

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme**: 40, Rated  
**Characters**: Avis, Chi, Aotsuki, Hanabira, mentions of Rath, Cesia, and Garfakcy  
**Pairing**: Rath/Cesia  
**Warnings**: It's Chi, of course there are gonna be a million warnings. Umm... Innuendo like crazy, the song "I'm Too Sexy"... Hints of shounen-ai. Also, crazy AU.  
**Need to Know Info**: 黄ばら花びら, Kibara Hanabira, is a Cloaks original character, one of three Dragon Fighters whose official job is "Make Avis Rara's life as chaotic as possible". He's the only one of the three with actual Dragon blood. He's descendant from a long-line of fortunetellers who have practiced in Dusis. Maybe he's distant cousins to Sarazar? He takes his role as a Dragon Fighter deadly serious and idolizes Tetheus. XD (Also, _note that this theme is related to Theme 27, and foreshadows important events in Cloaks_.)  
**Title Provider**: I'm Too Sexy (Right Said Fred)

_I'm Too Sexy for This Song..._

* * *

"There is something very wrong about this," Avis sighed, pulling his front door open wider.

"No there isn't!" A red-headed boy plowed around him, vaulting over the back of Avis's couch with practiced ease, and flashing a Cheshire Cat grin back toward the door. "I brought popcorn!"

With more reserve than their exuberant friend, two more boys trooped over the threshold and into Avis's once peaceful house.

"S-Sorry to intrude," stuttered the shorter, navy-haired boy.

"It's all right Noyoru," Avis sighed again.

At the sound of being addressing him by his first name, the boy's nut-brown face colored russet. He tripped, ungainly as ever, over the edge of the living room rug.

"Terribly sorry to bother you like this," the last boy, a tall blond, said, sliding off his shoes and leaving them in a perfectly straight pair next to Akano Chi's haphazardly tossed off sandals.

Akano Chi, Aotsuki Noyoru, and Kibara Hanabira: quite possibly the three most troublesome students Avis Rara had ever been forced to educate in his long career as Biochemistry professor at the University of Draqueen.

Avis shut the door with a click, moving to lean against the living room doorway wearily. A headache was already forming behind Avis's eyes and just looking at Akano Chi bouncing on the couch set his fragile nerves on edge.

"R-Rath's not home?" Aotsuki looked curiously back over the couch.

"He's out somewhere with his—" the blond professor made a face "—girlfriend."

"Oh ho!" Chi chuckled darkly. "What could two vivacious high school students be doing out alone at such an hour?"

"I sent Garfakcy with them," Avis replied, hints of something dark and smug flitting across his face.

"Oh man," the red-headed boy winced. "You are the killer of all things fun."

Brushing the comment aside, Avis settled an exasperated stare on the three intruders of his home. "I still don't understand why you come here for movie night," he huffed.

"Because you've got the stereo system of the gods, duh." Chi's enormous blue eyes stared incredulously over the top of Avis's tan couch, wide and unblinking, as if there could be no other answer.

"I wasn't aware Sony was God," the pale blond man couldn't resist replying, a roguish smile slipping across his lips before he could crush it.

"Of course Sony is God," the red-head scoffed, earning nods from his two companions. "I mean hello, Guitar Hero!"

"Can't say I've ever heard of it," Avis shrugged, pushing himself off the door frame at last, with every intention of joining the three intruders in his living room.

"Never heard of it?!" The red-head nearly fell off the couch in shock. "That has to be illegal, a crime! I should go buy a Playstation and—" his impossibly chipper expression sunk as fast as a rock thrown into a pond. "Well, if I could afford a Playstation."

There was a flash of something tight and dark in Hanabira's iris-colored eyes, and the blond boy straightened from where he had been leaning against the back of the sofa.

"Oi, Akano, I'll go make the popcorn."

"Okay!" The red-head cheered up instantly, as if popcorn could chase away the shadows that lingered on his face. A colorful packet went flying in an easy arch toward the blond companion, and was caught by the purple-eyed boy with practiced ease.

"Rara-sensei, I have forgotten where the microwave is," Hanabira said in that stately and stoic voice he used around everyone but the red and blue-haired boys chittering like squirrels on the couch. "Will you please show me again?"

"Hana, you can see the microwave from here," Avis blinked.

"No, you can not," the blond retorted, iris stare making it evident how little the microwave had to do with their imminent retreat to the kitchen. Wondering exactly what had gotten into the normally sulky boy, Avis followed his student into the halogen-lit kitchen.

Rather than putting the popcorn into the microwave, the blond boy turned the plastic package over in his hands.

"Have you…" Sharp purple eyes met Avis's blue in a piercing stare that he could not break. "Have you ever felt as if all of us are connected?"

The question was unexpected but not startling, and Avis knew the answer before even thinking about it. There was a reason he allowed these students to invade his house; there was a reason they brought all their problems to him.

"Yes," Avis replied honestly. "I've always felt that way."

"It is because we made a promise." Brushing long butter strands of hair off his shoulder, the boy looked away at last. "Perhaps this will sound insane… but these sorts of feelings have always run in my family. Something of a knowledge of what has happened long ago… and what is bound to happen in the future. I am sure… that we once made a promise, and that promise is binding us still."

To anyone else, it would have sounded strange, unbelievable—but to Avis, it made sense of many things he had acknowledged but could not explain.

"I'm rather inclined to believe you," the professor mused. "It would explain why I find myself incapable of throwing your asses back out on the street when you three wander into my house as if you were my children."

Normally a comment like that would have earned a half-smile from Hanabira—now it did nothing to lift the boy's cloudy countenance. Avis couldn't remember ever seeing the other blond so disquieted. While Hana was perpetually serious, a shining example of responsibility for his two immature friends, he was also perpetually strong, never wavering in his straightforward and sharp manner. Now however, Avis could not help but think the boy looked a little run down; there was something like fear flickering in his iris-colored eyes.

"I wanted to talk to you… about Chi," Hana said. "He is trying, so hard. But ever since his mother…"

Avis knew about Chi's mother. He'd been the one to the drive the boy to the hospital after Chi had gotten that final, heart-shattering phone call.

"He dropped most of his classes, I am sure you know," the purple-eyed boy continued. "He is paying for a dorm room on his own now, because all the insurance went to her treatments… Still, he has been getting better. He has started really smiling again." Instead of seeming relieved by this, the blond boy's face darkened more than ever.

"But I have a feeling—no, I know—something terrible is coming. I don't know what, or even when… I just know that it is coming, and that none of us will be able to stop it. I don't… I don't think Chi will be okay."

The sudden silence was thick enough that Avis could feel it gathering painfully in his throat. Hana's voice was a practiced calm, laced with quiet desperation that glittered most brightly in iris eyes.

"When that happens," the boy's stare was as unending as always, "you will be there won't you? I feel like you will be able to piece us back together after…"

The professor meant to ask after _what_ exactly, but he was struck by the sudden impression that he once _knew_ what, and simply could not remember now.

"Of course," Avis said at last, the ghost of a benevolent smile dancing across his face. "I made a promise, didn't I?"

For the first time that night, relief lit in Hanabira's heavy gaze.

"Heyyy!" a voice howled suddenly from the other room. "It doesn't take that long to make popcorn… You two are doing something naughtyyyyy, aren't you?" Chi crooned. "And you didn't invite me?!"

Aotsuki's flustered "Eep!" carried all the way into the kitchen, just under Chi's boisterous mock-anger.

"I will finish the popcorn," Hana offered a stiff sort of smile. Avis nodded in reply, steeling himself for the red-headed boy's chipper tirade as he entered the living room.

"You know Akano, I haven't put in the semester grades," the professor threatened, throwing himself easily down on the couch beside the quieter blue-haired student. Aotsuki wiggled away, as if intimidated by the sudden lack of personal space on the sofa. "I can still fail you."

"You can't fail me!" Chi whined, opening his enormous blue eyes even further, his bottom lip out in a childish pout. "I'm too cute!"

"It's unfortunate for you then that I don't grade based on appearance." A snicker wormed its way free of Avis, and Aotsuki barely managed to crush a gale of giggles.

"Ahh, you're just jealous that I'm so beautiful. One day you're going to see me on the cover of a magazine."

"They put b-boys on the covers of m-magazines? I thought only girls got c-cover shots…" Aotsuki shuttered out a taunt.

"Well!" Chi crowed, undaunted. "I'll be a male model then!" The boy leapt up to strut and strike a pose. "'Cause we all know that I'm too sexy! I'm too sexy for my—"

"Popcorn?" Hana's eyed them all—sweeping between the oddly-angled Chi, red-faced Aotsuki, and Avis, who looked like dignity was the only thing keeping him from rolling on the floor in stitches.

"Ooh, I am _not_ too sexy for that popcorn!" Chi vaulted over the back of the couch, adhering to the plastic popcorn bowl like he was an octopus, not a boy.

Watching the blond and the red-head fight over the bowl, Aotsuki whimpering as he tried to choose who to cheer for, Avis felt an inexplicable sense of warmth. It was foreign but familiar, odd but welcoming, and as strange as Avis thought all this was, he knew that his front door would always open on Friday evenings, that there would always be three annoying boys crowding his couch, and making use of his godly stereo system—they were his students and his brothers and even his unruly sons… but above all that, they were his friends.

There was comfort and echo of old promises in the thought.

"Are we going to watch a movie or not?" Avis smiled.

Hana looked up from where he is attempting to stuff popcorn down the back of Chi's shirt, and Chi gave up trying to jab a kernel into Hana's eye.

"Oh yeah!" Instantly the war for possession of the popcorn ended in a peace treaty, and Aotsuki held the bowl, offering it to everyone in turn. Chi jumped up to put in the DVD, falling back on to the couch with a pleasant sigh.

The opening credits started rolling and then….

"Chi…" Avis's eye twitched of its own accord. "What is this movie rated?!"

"Uhhhh… There might be X… or two… or three… in it?"

"CHI!"

* * *

**Theme 41: Teamwork  
**_"Now is really not the time to be doubting me, Kaistern."_


	41. Hello

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

**Theme:** 41, Teamwork**  
Characters:** Kharl, Kaistern**  
Pairing:** None**  
Warnings:** Things die. It's not pretty.**  
Need to Know Info:** Bet you thought this collection would never get updated, didn't you? Yeah, for a while so did I. Fell back in love with Dragon Knights pretty hardcore though, so I thought I'd ease back into writing for this fandom with a few shorter pieces. My style has changed so much the early themes sort of me make cringe. Ugh. Here, after almost four years, have something new (but not necessarily something better; progress in writing comes so slowly to me...).**  
Title Provider:** Hello (Martin Solveig and Dragonette)

_I Could Stick Around and Get Along With You_

* * *

Some time between desperately pounding on the Dragon Queen's door and searching for a pulse in the White Officer's cold wrist—some time after the eighth (the ninth, the tenth) demon launches itself at him, eying his empty hands, singing victory cries about easy prey which he cuts short with a swift dose of Death Seed—Kharl realizes he is fighting. On his enemy's side.

The thought doesn't make him pause exactly, and the irony that he should get his own hands dirty _now_, of all times (in a false human body, in the service of those he swore to kill, against an army he might have easily raised on his own), is worth one dry laugh or two and little else. It's not like any of this is for _them_; it's always that everything he does is done for Rath.

Rath, dead. Gone. On the brink of resurrection. So many glittering lights and incompatible pieces.

_I will not let you disappear._

When he is reborn (no, it's still out of Kharl's hands: _if_ he is reborn and isn't that the cruelest irony of all?), Rath will be weak. He will need peace.

Kharl intends to give him that if it must be won by spilling an ocean's depth of demon blood. Tonight, somehow beyond comprehension, his singular desire to see the boy whole and safe aligns itself exactly to the Dragon Tribe's own wishes, all of them fighting first for a lord whose love of Rath has brought an entire kingdom to death's doorstep. No one believes the knight is gone; everyone battles on bated breath. A temporary alliance then, he promises, and nothing more.

The next demon who makes the mistake of choosing Avis Rara as its target is less fortunate than its kin—he's run out of Death Seed and never one for swords or staves, his hands will have to do. The ash disguise has mostly kept him hidden so far, keeps his claws invisible beneath the illusion of human nails, so it's no surprise the demon falls back still gurgling alarm, its eyes bulged out in unmistakable disbelief, the arteries in its neck severed and gushing.

His lip curls of its own volition. There are some kinds of messes he can tolerate and others that he can't. A swift flick of his fingers spatters the dark blood along the nearest wall, one more minute stain to match the rivers already there. Kharl is momentarily thankful he left his cloaks at home; this graveyard of broken swords and staffs, of legs and arms and wings and fangs is an accident waiting to happen. He doesn't have time to slow down.

He can feel every shattered piece of Rath's soul gathering there. He has to reach that place in time, even if all he does is wait outside the door to feel the exact moment the wind witch stitches his child together again.

_Master_, his mind repeats in an infinite loop. He kills another nameless, faceless demon and maybe the Dragon Fighter it was chewing on is still alive, if that look of desperate confusion is a fresh stare meant for him and not etched on by death. It occurs to him that his focus is slipping uncontrollably; there's no way his disguise is unaffected, and maybe the Dragon Fighter was staring because his physician turned into a demon and demon killer before him, all at once. Kharl can't even bring himself to care. After tonight, Avis Rara will be meaningless. The Dragon Tribe will need more coroners than doctors.

He presses forward and down into the heart of the castle, all his world narrowed to one goal, to one moment. His claws flex in anticipation. His fangs cut his lip.

Later he will blame that single-mindedness for their encounter; later he will whisper half-mindless prayers of gratitude that he wanted to see Rath more than he wanted revenge. If he had been thinking clearly, he might he have found another route, left that man to die—or he might have killed the man himself, and destroyed Rath's only chance of resurrection with his own two hands.

Kharl is halfway down the corridor toward the next pack of Nadil's minions before he feels the suffocated presence, the flare of Dragon magic buried amongst the writhing crush of demon bodies.

He would have known that power in his sleep—had felt it every night his dreams conjured up a snowy mountain.

_Kaistern_.

The Blue Officer is struggling against a massive number of enemies. He might have handled them efficiently at full strength, but Ruwalk's concerns drift back to Kharl.

_Did you inspect his left arm?_

Alone and injured, he stands no chance. More importantly, they are blocking Kharl's way.

The demon hoard is focused on their weakened prey; the monsters closest to Kharl begin to fall without ever turning to look at him. He's cut a narrow swath into the churning siege before any of them notice, and then, by the time they have noticed, he has pierced the inner circle and is standing face to face with one of the men he loathes most deeply.

_ This man took everything from me again, when at last I had the chance to set it right. This man held Rath like he was holding his own child_, Kharl thinks.

Kaistern stares back him, scowling, breathing raggedly, and the air itself seems to crackle between them with some invisible current of mutual rage. It's too much to say the world stands still, but for a moment the fierce clashing of their power gives the demon army cause to freeze, to shiver back a step and stay their claws.

"You..." Kaistern breathes, the word stirring blood at the corner of his mouth. His sword jerks in his hand as if he wishes to swing it but can't find the strength. It is blatantly obvious he believes Kharl has appeared in the castle to fight on the demons' side—_Just like them_, the officer's stare says. _You have bled out of my nightmares to become real and solid at the worst moment, to get your revenge like the rest of this trash in my last hour _and_ I will not let you have him. Not now. Not ever._

For a moment, Kharl itches in agony to do just that, to pay Kaistern back for every blow traded that day on the mountain, to make the man suffer for every pain that recollection brings.

Maybe it's the look itself that stops him, something sick and terrible in being equated to the brainless masses of Nadil's army (as if Kharl were no better than them, indiscriminate animals). Or maybe it's something else entirely, suddenly discovered in the memory of Kaistern's hand around Rath's shoulder, in the ferocity with which he fought to get Rath back.

Long before he ever plans it, Kharl reaches to his right and, opening his hand, forces space to contort over the nearest demon's chest, reducing the monster's heart to a pithy hole. It drops dead beside him without a noise.

"Now is really not the time to be doubting me, Kaistern."

The Blue Officer has enough time to blink but not long enough to decide whether Kharl is foe or ally at the moment before all the demons are upon them again, a shrieking wall of wing, tooth, weaponry.

Kaistern is not discriminating in his blows; more than once Kharl shifts to avoid the poisoned blade very clearly meant for his heart—his own attacks are no less purposeful: Kaistern is slower to dodge and earns shallow wounds for it. Kharl tries not to be smug, but smug is a pleasant feeling when what it displaces is despair and desperation.

And then, of course, they are back to back, shoulders half-brushing, facing down the faster, smarter minority of the hoard. The demon posturing before Kharl glares at him in utter disgust, nothing so contemptible in its eyes as a blood traitor. He smiles up at its distorted snapping turtle face, a meter or two outside even his impressive reach. Its skin is horrendously hard, shell or armor, and already his usual tricks have bounced right off it. Time to resort to teamwork, he supposes.

"If I may borrow your sword—" He does not even wait for inflection to make his words into a question; when Kaistern sweeps his sword back from a glancing blow on his own opponent, Kharl turns, reaches out a hand, and impales his palm on the blade, the narrow alternate dimension blossoming open in his grasp to whisk the weapon off to where he needs it.

"Oi!" Kaistern's protests fall on deaf ears; he has to kick his wolf-like opponent to prevent its attack, his hand anchored to the hilt of his sword.

"Stab please," Kharl commands, and only the strangeness of the situation causes Kaistern to obey, against his better judgment. He puts his remaining strength behind the gesture, slashing forward even though the blade itself has vanished into the miniature portal—and just as during their battle long ago, he watches a matching vortex open in front of the turtle demon's face. Off-time to his movement but with all his same momentum, his sword pierces the demon's eye and everything behind it. It crumples to the corpse-filled floor.

"Thank the lord they can't all do that," Kaistern mutters to himself, although it makes Kharl laugh too. The moment of distraction _that_ causes (_he sounds like Rath, just like Rath_, Kaistern thinks) costs him; his ignored opponent chooses that second to wisely dart in, landing a heavy blow that knocks him flat on his back over the pile of older bodies. Kharl, quite naturally, does nothing to help him.

And then it is only the two of them left alive. Kharl watches as Kaistern stumbles where he stands, clutching at his left wrist, the fingers of his right hand clenching and unclenching over the sleeve of his jacket. He grits his teeth, seems almost ready to fall. His glare dares Kharl to take another step, demands to know what he is doing there, what he intends to do with Rath.

Kaistern only looks away for a split second, down the hall toward the hidden sanctuary where Rath is gathering. _He can feel it_, Kharl thinks, a little bit in wonder. Even with no knowledge of the soul, this man can feel Rath as surely as Kharl himself can, and now that the alchemist is trying he can smell death on the man, a creeping rot. Very sharply, he wishes he could have time to dissect the creature before him, to learn what strange power ties him so deeply to Rath and how he might cleanly break it before dying goes and turns Kaistern into a martyr and chains the boy even more irrevocably to the Dragon Tribe.

There is no time. Cesia will be struggling even now to bring Rath back. The Blue Officer is down to his last breaths. He is trying to reach the boy just as desperately... Almost before thinking, Kharl realizes exactly what Kaistern intends to do, and in that half-second he hates the man more deeply than he has ever hated—and loves him with the certain degree of awe reserved for the best proprietors of selfless sacrifice.

Kaistern adores Rath. Kaistern loves his creation—his master—as surely and completely as Kharl does and now he will die to prove it, to protect it.

That's cruel too.

Even when they are allies, Kharl will still somehow lose. They can resurrect Rath thousand times, and he will never come back to Arinas, will he?

"Before he was yours, he was mine," Kharl hears himself murmur, surrender. "Remember that, at least."

* * *

**Theme 42: Standing Still**_  
He also does a lot of sitting around, and drinking tea, and reading harlequin romance novels from Dusis that he makes Garfakcy buy. _


	42. Talking to the Moon

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme:** 42, Standing Still**  
Characters:** Garfakcy, Sinistra, Kharl**  
Pairing:** None, although Sinistra/Kharl/Garfakcy gets played for all the laughs it will ever be worth.**  
Warnings:** I am not responsible for the copious amounts of brain bleach you might need after this. Well, technically I am, but whatever.**  
Need to Know Info:** Um, lots? First off, I apologize for Sinistra. If her character/powers/everything strikes you as completely bizarre, that's because I totally made it up. She's almost straddling the OC wall at this point, and I don't even care. And let's see… remember when I mentioned Kharl was a birdie (because I said so)? Well, this is that, played out to its logical and absurd conclusion. Ornithology, ho! Lastly, I probably should have said this somewhere ages ago, but I am totally not a fan of Kharl/Garfakcy, so when I poke fun at it here, it's about 20 percent affectionate and 80 percent "No. Just no."**  
Title Provider:** Talking to the Moon (Bruno Mars)

_Or Am I a Fool Who Sits Alone, Talking to the Moon?_

* * *

It's not like he can ever forget, nine-tenths of Garfakcy keenly, constantly aware of it—it's just that sometimes, against all expectation, it sneaks up and takes him by surprise.

Kharl is a demon.

No, he _knows_ that, really, but most of the time it's impossible to think of his master that way. Demons are monstrous and monstrously strong, untamable beasts whose instincts clamor for bloodshed, whose bodies are built for pure and unadulterated destruction—they are wild and cruel and beautiful and maybe, when he's feeling poetic, something like all the kinetic energy of the world collected, smooth and perpetual forward motion sealed behind decadent grins. Every step is a practice in half-concealed violence, every toss of their hands the seductive promise of supreme power, animalistic surrender.

Lord Kharl is not exactly any of those things.

It's true he can be cruel and quick as a viper to his enemies' throats (and it's true too that the stronger the demon, the more refined their tastes), but he also does a lot of sitting around, and drinking tea, and reading harlequin romance novels from Dusis that he makes Garfakcy buy. He likes to eat dessert before dinner, he needs help getting up in the morning, and (Sinistra likes to joke), he _twitters_ in the bath.

He's different from Garfakcy, unmistakably so, but sometimes he's so damn human it's only as different as talking to someone from Glaciosa maybe: a little more provincial, the hint of an odd accent in there somewhere, the occasional questionable moral. The day-to-day of it all undermines reality, and some time after Garfakcy explains the function of their vacuum cleaner for the four hundredth time, Kharl loses nine-tenths of his demon mystique and tumbles into the neat little folder in Garfakcy's head labelled "Utterly Hopeless."

Even when he uses his power directly, steps into a serious, fiery stare and plots mass genocide, he ends up looking like something else entirely: a vengeful god, so far above the rest of them that even other demons find themselves scrambling to bow at his feet. Garfakcy understands the concept of demon kings, but in Kharl's case—when he lifts his little finger and blots out lives or just as easily brings them back, when he creates new _souls_ from ash and nothing—it's easier to think of him as divine, the lord of giving and taking away.

So he's lazy half the time and god-like the other half and nowhere in there is there room for odd monster instincts—but sometimes there _has_ to be, because Kharl _is_ a demon after all.

It begins as a completely innocuous day. Garfakcy gets up just after dawn, throws open the curtains throughout the castle and drifts toward the kitchen in no particular hurry. At one point, he stops to idly dust out a wall sconce. In the pantry, he sorts through their stock, contemplating. They're out of eggs. He could pop over to Dusis and get some, but it's just so far... (Never mind that transportation spells take about fifteen seconds.) He decides on the flour instead, maybe crepes. The wood-burning stove takes a while to catch; he pitches in three logs and settles back to wait for the fire.

That's when he happens to glance at the calendar hung over the wash basin.

"Shit," Garfakcy says, and for good measure, he repeats it.

It's the first day of spring.

Forget the crepes. He is going to need those eggs after all. And an entire boar for bacon too, while they're at it. Somewhere in the castle, a monster is sleeping. Garfakcy tamps the stove and does something that looks a lot like running away.

There is a pattern. It took Garfakcy an infinitely long time to figure out the pattern, his first few years in the castle, but he did notice it finally, began to dust the calendar off at the end of each winter to check his suspicions. Sure enough, something strange most definitely happens to Master Kharl on the 20th of March every year.

It's the exact same every spring: it starts with the eating, three—sometimes four—times as much at dinner, and then the addition of a brunch _and_ a luncheon. Kharl asks for extra courses, takes two whole cakes at tea, grazes in the kitchen between meals and at midnight as if he is on the verge of starving. Garfakcy has no idea where he puts it all or how to handle his increasingly bizarre requests (where, exactly, can they find bonefish and starfruit in April?) but he draws the line when Kharl starts to look wistfully at his flower garden.

Along with the odd eating comes the irritability, a few extra hisses of frustration when this or that spell doesn't go quite right. Kharl gets a little clumsier and then angry with himself for the mistakes. At lunch, he complains about the lack of second salad fork even though he's never used a second salad fork in his life. It takes him two hours to get dressed some mornings, every outfit rejected on this trumped or reason or that—too bright, too dark, too thick, too light. He makes Garfakcy wash all the castle rugs and then rewash them the very next day, even the ones no one's stepped on in years. Sunny mornings seem to put him in a particularly bad mood, and he takes to lurking in his lab and expecting dinner brought to him in the library. Changes in color and arrangement irk him, and he gets almost waspish when Garfakcy suggests they move a chair.

He becomes abruptly territorial, locking his bedroom door with one clever spell after another, some so complicated it takes Garfakcy hours to break in and collect the laundry—and heavens forbid the servant try to clean up messes in the lab: Kharl flaps around an angry jay bird and snatches everything back, insisting every crumpled paper and rag is vital to his research.

He cuts all contact with his occasional allies for the entire month; more than one of Shydeman's agents is returned to Kainaldia in pieces for crossing the invisible border he's drawn around the castle grounds. He shuffles his work around suspiciously when a bumblebee so much as brushes the window, and at least once a season, Garfakcy finds himself wondering where Right Bird has vanished to when they need him most.

The restlessness is the height of it, like a peaking fever. Although demons don't need much sleep, Kharl never passes up a night (and morning, and mid-morning, and sometimes mid-afternoon too when Garfakcy dares to get close and ends up knocked over the head like some sort of living snooze button). By the end of March, however, the demon hardly sleeps, wanders the corridors at all hours murmuring to himself. All morning he twitches about, picking up one project and then another, sitting down and then standing, walking into one room and abruptly changing his mind, turning around to walk right back out. Even at meals he seems to hum and jangle, toying nervously with the hems of his cloak sleeves.

He's a thousand times messier and a thousand times more eccentric. In short, he drives Garfakcy insane.

Laden down with breakfast stuffs fit to feed a Hermosa orphanage or two for a week, Garfakcy slinks through the castle, half on tiptoe. He's almost to the kitchen again, trying to see where he is stepping around the heaps of wax-paper-wrapped breakfast meats and the dozen sweet rolls spilling out of his arms, when he runs knee-first into a living mound of fur and almost goes tumbling end over end.

"You too?" Sinistra is very suddenly scowling down at him, one blue eye cracked open in a narrow slit, slender hands on curvaceous hips. She's found a new face to wear already, and if the way she's throwing her weight around is any indication, she's quite proud of this newest disguise. (Not that she isn't proud of every shape she takes, and not that she doesn't change every two days.)

Garfakcy, on the other hand, is more interested in bracing for the storm than giving her transformation a cursory inspection. He shoves half his load into her arms with as much grace as he can muster at the moment, which is to say none. "You've got thumbs today. Put them to good use."

Sinistra makes sure he hears her particularly offended huff, but she follows along behind him just as well as she does when she looks like a dog, dawdling only to give the cheeses a suspicious sniff and shake her head at his choices.

Normally he'd have to fill the corridors with cooking smell and put food on the table before she'd bother to leave her customary spot at the foot of Master Kharl's bed. If she'd been sleeping in the hall, it could only mean one thing.

"He threw you out?" Garfakcy asks, reigniting the tinder in the stove's belly.

She actually stamps her foot. And that's another thing he's been wondering: when she steals the forms of other demons, does she get all their awful personality quirks too? As a dog she always strikes him as dignified and somber and wickedly clever—but give the canine a few extra finger bones and she starts to roll her eyes.

At least the gesture seems to fit this particular body; now that his view is not obstructed by prosciutto, he can see her newest shape shift is a tall, beguiling demoness, full-bodied and slick, a pattering of iridescent scales across the refined lines of her jaw and down her naked shoulders. Thick, dark curls pool to somewhere down her back, spill half across one clear and glinting eye in an artfully tossled manner. Her clothes are a hair's breadth away from leaving _nothing_ to the imagination.

She's a dog. She doesn't see anything wrong with this picture. (Or maybe she _does_, and that's _why_ she does it.) Normally he wouldn't spare her a second glance, but today is the 20th of March and anything but normal, so he practically swallows his tongue.

"Change. Now." He forgets all about the stove and lets it hiss and steam. It's not even the stove that's making the room hot; he can feel a horrific blush creeping up his neck and in his ears.

Sinistra, for her part, sweeps a look over her newly claimed body and errs on the side of defensive. She has to sift through a lot of ugly, petty little souls to find open ones like this and good looks are always hard to find among the dead. "Why should I?" she pouts.

"It's _spring_!" Garfakcy grinds the words out between his teeth like they're the answer to every significant question in life.

But "So?" she retorts, cocking her head to the side in a gesture that looks much better on dogs. "What should that mean?"

He sputters. He chokes. He even briefly wishes a Dragon Knight would pop into their kitchen and kill him on the spot because this is one conversation he never planned on having with _anyone_, let alone their dog in the form of a pin-up model and why'd she pick that body today of all days anyway?

"It's _spring_," he repeats, the only thing he can really bear to do, but of course it doesn't sink in. "You're a demon, you're supposed to know this stuff!" He throws his hands up in something like supreme supplication to the heavens. There are some things he can be totally candid about but this is _not_ one of them. "You should just _know_!" His voice is approaching breathless squeak or self-conscious whisper.

"Know what?" She is grinning, that particularly evil, knowing grin that says she's already read his mind, knows exactly what he's thinking but will _never_ let him go until he suffers the humiliation of saying it out loud.

"He's—I mean—it's like this every year—he gets so—you're demons—isn't there a—_season_?" Garfakcy's so mortified the last word barely comes out at all. For a half second he cringes in utter terror at the chance she'll fake she didn't hear it, ask him to speak up louder.

But she doesn't. The room goes eerily silent for one long, agonizing minute.

And then she bursts out laughing. She laughs like she was born doing it, like the hyenas Dusis gets south of Costa Rica sometimes. She starts laughing and can't stop until she's doubled over and as red in the face as he is and where the hell did she learn to laugh anyway, because the last time he checked, dogs don't _do_ that. Also, scratch the part about a Dragon Knight killing him—Garfakcy hopes the Dragon Knight swoops in and kills _her_, so he can thoroughly pretend this whole humiliating morning never happened.

"You're such a—!" She has to stop talking to breathe around her giggles. "Such a kid!"

Some of the soul-rending embarrassment gets buried under indignation. "I'm two hundred year older than you," he deadpans.

"Mm..." She leans down toward him, crossing one arm under that body's ample chest, raising one inviting and completely teasing eyebrow. She reaches her other soft, slender hand out to his face—"But you still can't catch up!" —and immediately pinches his horribly blushing cheek.

"I _hate_ you!" It takes a good minute's flailing to free himself, and by then she's laughing again.

Sinistra rests her face in one palm, staring off into the distance for a moment in a look that might have been genuinely contemplative on someone far less wicked than her. Finally, she grins—slightly different than the last, an out-of-place cat-that-got-the-canary smirk. "I suppose I can't blame you for coming to that conclusion though," she drawls. "He was so _rough_ this morning..."

_Oh God_.

"And he's been so _alone_ all...these..._years._.."

_Oh God. Oh God_.

"There must be times when he just _craves_—"

Garfakcy puts his fingers in his ears and starts to recite the names of his favorite cleaning products in order of their usefulness. He is so, so, so not hearing this, won't think about it, made sure to never, ever, ever think about it—

She leans a little closer to be heard over his mantra, winking conspiratorially even though he's about ready to crush his eyes shut and run away wailing. Her ridiculously supermodel hair slides down over her shoulder and brushes on his neck and, really, she's just _evil_.

"Maybe we ought to—" she puts the last nail in the coffin "—offer to _help_ our master with his... _problem_."

Garfakcy skips down the list of cleaning favorites to _bleach_ and oh. my. god. how much of it is he going to need to clean this entire memory out of his permanently sullied brain and screw battles, if he ever gets post-traumatic stress it's going to be from _this_ she can't be serious what is going on he doesn't even—approaching critical mass and no. Just _no_.

She actually waves a hand in front of his momentarily blind eyes and worries for a second that she's broken their poor maid. Poor old maid. Ha.

He promptly snaps out of his stupor (or just snaps) and hurls the pot, the kettle, and the cheese wheel at her. A chase ensues that might have gone down on the record as the most bizarre and most furious Castle Arinas has ever seen, had Kharl been awake to make a record (and if he could have found the record book in the first place).

Of course, she long outlasts him. When Garfakcy slumps against the wall she's quite suddenly there, all smiles, ruffling his hair like he hasn't been trying to kill her for half an hour and like she isn't their _dog_. And breakfast _still_ isn't made.

"Besides," she adds too long after the fact, tapping her bottom lip in mock innocence, "you _do_ have it wrong. What's bothering Kharl is something else entirely."

He deflates, all the energy rushing right out of him. At the beginning of this conversation, Garfakcy would have found that annoucement a great relief. Now it's completely possible there's some worse secret out there and why the hell did he ever want to become a demon again? They're all _insane_.

"I wasn't lying though," she adds, murmuring. "There is a way we can be of some help." She leans back against the cool stone wall of the remote corridor. Her voice hits a solemn note, the smile falling off her face into a more subtle expression, something fond and a little sad. The sharp shift leaves him tumbling again, on uncertain ground. For a short moment, he resents the fact that she seems to know something about Master Kharl that he doesn't, but she is the governess of the mind and built to _know_. He quiets his ragged breath to listen to her.

"Be kind," she says. "He needs it."

Normally when he can hear her speaking he takes her words with a grain of salt, but today he takes them with three dozen eggs, and when Kharl finally stumbles to the dining table and starts to inhale the banquet spread, Garfakcy bites his tongue to hold back a reprimand. He uses the extra time to observe, and it's true, Master Kharl looks terrible. The circles under his eyes are so dark it looks like someone's smacked him around, and even his normally irrepressible hair seems limp and miserable. He slumps bonelessly, the sort of sloppy behavior Garfakcy would never stand for any other day. He eats so quickly his face is almost in the plate, the fork in his hand a blur. If Garfakcy had not lived with him for decades upon decades, he would have accused the man of needing a good shave. (But he had lived with Master Kharl for decades upon decades and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kharl _never_ needed to shave, thank the gods: if he couldn't handle salad tongs, Garfakcy didn't want to see what he'd do to himself with a razor.)

The alchemist doesn't so much as mumble a word to anyone; Sinistra pats Kharl's free hand consolingly and snickers in Garfakcy's direction when she thinks he isn't looking.

And then there's quite simply nothing left on the table, and although Sinistra and Garfakcy had next to that nothing for themselves, Kharl still sends their barren plates a particularly dark and offended look. He gets up from the table as silent as he fell down at it, not one mention of his usual thank yous or "So what are we going to do today, Garfakcy!" (The answer isinevitably the _same_ thing they do every day, which is something like try to take over the world. Subtly, of course.)

Before Kharl gets even three steps, Sinistra reaches out to run a sultry hand up his droopy arm, catching the sleeve of his cloak and pushing it up so that she can touch his bare skin with her own stolen fingers and for all the obvious reasons and some less obvious ones too (how often do they see Master Kharl's skin really? It just looks weird!) Garfakcy is disturbed all over again. The one crepe he got threatens to escape him violently.

But—although she _never_ touches Kharl this familiarly and certainly never in a body like that at a time like this—the alchemist doesn't comment about the strangeness at all. In fact, he doesn't even seem to notice: he keeps right on walking out of her hold like she's a ghost he can pass through, his reddened eyes far away, his mouth a grim line. Garfakcy can tell he's gritting his fangs—not like he's holding anything back but like he's suffering some pain the rest of them can't and won't ever feel.

Sinistra lets him go, settles back down in her chair for a moment and turns an expectant look on Garfakcy, a sly grin. "I told you it wasn't _that_," she teases, but it's hardly a minute before she's frowning. He still can't follow the tidal changes of her expressions, the rapid ebb and flow of amusement and discontent. More than once he's got the sense she wears feelings as well as she wears bodies: everything managed down to the minutiae of her fingertips.

Sinistra stares at the place Kharl was sitting a moment ago, and the soft cant of her lips, the lowering of her eyelids is everything tender and loyal. "It's more like we're not here at all," she mutters, and for a half second she's just as far gone, off some place he can't even hope to find.

Even though she's sitting next to him and Master Kharl is just a few rooms over, Garfakcy has not felt so alone in ages.

She turns her borrowed face the smallest bit to stare at him from the corner of one eye. "Do you want to know what's wrong with him, really?" she muses.

Garfakcy has to physically fight his automatic reaction, which is to demand to know, immediately, everything she has to tell. Of course he wants to—he wants to know everything about Master Kharl, almost has (after so many centuries!) the right to know. And yet something about today, about her distant grimace, his incorrect assumptions, makes Garfakcy hesitate. Will he hear something he doesn't want to—something that changes the delicate balance of their lives? Maybe it would be better to go on as they have; at the end of spring it will be like nothing happened and everything will be fine even if Garfakcy never understands the real reason for it and even if he never finds a way to fix it—

"Obviously I want to know," he snaps.

Sinistra shuts her eyes and tilts her head to the sound of his voice, her open mouth a glint of tooth and tongue. The expression of content is all canine and all the more genuine for it; Garfakcy is reminded sharply of the fact that he adores her (when she's small enough that he can pet her head).

She stops to sniff at the air for a moment, two rapid-fire inhalations. A brief pause is all the contemplation she gives it before decisively declaring, "Tomorrow morning I will show you."

_Great_, he thinks, sarcasm a caustic thing even in his head. _Just great_. It's not the suspense he's worried about either. How exactly does she intend to _show _him?

X – X – X

But of course it's the suspense that gets to him, gets to him so badly he goes through the day on eggshells, winding himself up and up wondering what dark secret Sinistra intends to reveal—and what he will do when he knows, how he will attack and scour the problem as effectively as he does everything else, so Master Kharl can at last rest trouble-free...

It gets to him so badly that by afternoon tea he forgets his mandate to be kind, barks at Kharl when the alchemist whines for another tin of biscotti—Sinistra, one chair over, looks up from her book with a glare full of dark promise. Garfakcy goes and gets the biscotti without another complaint.

And so on. Through thirteen more demands for snacks, two or three paranoid episodes, one onslaught of manic energy that sees their poor master shuffling papers from one precarious stack to another and back in an endless loop for an hour. Is it worse this year, or is he just imagining things?

It feels like an eternity before Garfakcy finally gets to call it a night, leaving his bedroom door open a crack so he can keep Kharl out of the stores when the inevitable midnight prowling begins. He shuffles into his night clothes and falls down face first onto his bed, all of the air going out of him in single _whoosh_.

He stays like that for another small eternity—he would have stayed like that all night, already half-asleep, if something cold and wet had not suddenly pressed against the arch of his bare foot. Jumping to face the enemy, ash spell already sparking in the back of his mind, Garfakcy meets a pair of wide amethyst eyes and a long, dark muzzle just peaking over the end of his bed.

She doesn't even need to make puppy eyes. All she needs to do is keep up that solemn, dignified, unblinking stare and the tiniest twitching of her button black nose and really, he can almost hear her "Would you leave a poor girl out in the cold?" (which he _would_, by the way, if this were anyone else).

"Fine," he surrenders with a hiss, and before he can finish the word, she leaps in a smooth arc up onto his down comforter and settles herself in an elegant pool of shadow over the end of his bed. Without so much as a nod of gratitude in his general direction, she curls her tail over her nose and goes right to sleep. Or she looks like she's sleeping. You can never tell with demons.

And okay, he admits a half minute later, so it's nice to have her soft back just in reach of his fingers, each strand of fur like silk. His feet have never been so warm and this must be what every human kid feels like curled up with his first puppy dog, falling asleep with loving companion and loyal guardian both. The thought is so sweet it's gross. It takes his mind easily, immediately off the coming morning, and for a bit he almost thinks it would be nice if they don't succeed in patching up Master Kharl right away, because he could get used to this.

X – X – X

He could get used to cuddling with a_ dog_—not whoever the hell this is!

Garfakcy wakes up to a tangle of limbs and a head of dark red hair buried under his chin and lets out a shout half war cry and half terror.

"Get _off_ me!" With all the adrenalin-fueled rage of a young man with one too many enemies, he kicks and pushes solidly at the stranger wrapped around him like an octopus. Only the element of surprise makes it possible for him to throw the intruder right off the bed and onto the floor, because when the red-head straightens up, it becomes blatantly obvious the demon could have overpowered him in a heartbeat.

Roubal sits beside Garfakcy's bed, in the blank square of moonlight through the window, rubbing his eyes and scowling. "You're manhandling me now too?" he grouses.

No, Garfakcy pauses the situation, rewinds, corrects himself: Sinistra sits beside his bed; that's _Sinistra_ complaining, through and through.

"Don't just do creepy stuff like that!" His voice comes out a stage-whispered yell, automatically hushed in response to the late hour. Or the early hour: on the horizon outside he can just see the first tinges of deep blue, the very beginning of dawn. Garfakcy resists the urge to pull up the covers protectively even though he's totally covered already and absolutely safe from everything but her mockery.

Roubal rolls his eyes. Or Sinistra rolls her eyes. Or something half in-between. (It's so much easier to keep things straight when she stays a _girl _at least, but no amount of complaining of his part can convince her to pick one gender and stick to it. Demons!)

When his heart calms down enough, she slinks back onto the edge of the bed, brushing out the folds of Roubal's cloak with a disgruntled huff. He can't stop himself from muttering, "Please tell me this is not how Master Kharl wakes up every day now," even though he totally doesn't want an answer to that, and of course she'll hear.

"No, he doesn't wake up the same way every day," she says, the hint of smug, wily decadence totally _off_ in a man's voice. "Sometimes I—" Garfakcy blanches "—well that's not important: it's almost time." Sparks of odd anticipation form in Roubal's dark eyes at the abrupt declaration, but she doesn't use that mouth to smile.

In the space of one of his breaths, she flickers across the room and stands in the open doorway. "Follow me," she says, a weighing command that seems to echo in the room and out beyond, slower than time, like all the most significant decisions of his life when he remembers them. There's physically nothing forcing him to go and yet he feels as if they've made a sort of promise, passed a point of no return.

He slides off the bed and heads for the door without even pausing to find his boots or overcoat. Even so, by the time he gets there he's—she's—already gone, the hem of a dark cloak disappearing down the next corridor.

Garfakcy runs.

It takes him longer then it should to realize where she is leading him but every hall and staircase whips by in a dark blur as he struggles to keep the demon in his sight. Just when he figures it out—the north bastion, the highest defensive platform in the castle wall—he loses sight of her for good, but it doesn't matter then, because there's only one way there—

Gasping for breath through his half-closed throat and his burning lungs, Garfakcy clambers up the last short ladder (these rungs could use replacing) and shoves open the trap door, hauling himself out into onto the cold stone and into the crisp night air which feels like a blessing against his sweating skin.

He can't make a sound of relief though. He can't make a sound at all. Even his breathing stops entirely.

The stone face of the bastion and the rampart are awash with the last clean moonlight of the night, bathing Kharl and Sinistra where she sits at his feet, black fur stretched out across the stone like a pitch pure shadow thrown into relief. They are both watching the sky.

A hundred thousand birds are flying overhead.

In the dark he can't make out their breeds except for the cranes, the great white flocks spread out like shifting constellations, and the geese, loudly calling to each other to keep time. But there are a thousand other shapes in the wheeling sky: small birds and big, those that seem to soar and those that flap without ceasing, the clapping of their wings joining with broken bursts of birdsong to fill the pre-dawn with ethereal noise, a high, constant hum like the hummingbird beating of his heart.

Garfakcy breathes because he has to, ends up amazed when the hiss of his exhalation doesn't break this dream in two. The birds do not evaporate into the dark; they go on without pause, replaced when they reach the extent of his sight by the next thousand bodies, a relentless rush of forward motion, all the whirling of the world feathered and flung under the stars. Going north.

He looks away at last because he wants to see their master's face (delight—he is the kind of demon who would be delighted), but instead what Garfakcy sees _hurts_, hurts in a primal physical way, the individual chambers of his heart condensing into something like stone and slamming against the inside of his ribcage.

The look on Kharl's face is _want_, pure and simple. The demon's hands are bloodless from clenching the cold rampart, scoring irreparable gouges in it with his claws. There are hundreds more sets of marks just like them (and suddenly Garfakcy feels guilty from scolding Right Bird at least once a year), the record of centuries of sleepless springs, and now it all makes sense. Because Kharl doesn't show it but at the heart of every demon is a beast and the alchemist has wings.

There is a place he wants to go. There is a place he _needs_ to go. Every single one of his baser instincts must be screaming to escape, to push him forward with this stream of living beings, the chilling wind through pinion feathers, the connection with so many other minds all bent on the same end, the call of a tradition bigger than all of them, millennia upon millennia old. How to ignore it? To fight against the pull of that tide, to hold still in the face of such a necessary journey? And why, even? Why fight when going wouldn't cost anything at all?

Kharl doesn't move. He stands totally and completely still, not even blinking. Only the endless movement of the birds above reflecting in his eyes seems to make them shift.

He _wants_, and he refuses.

Sinistra shifts the barest amount, turns her head to watch Garfakcy with an imploring gaze. She can _show_ him but it's not her place to explain, and maybe she couldn't explain it anyway, would need to say a long thread of things for which there are no words.

But that's all right. Garfakcy thinks he maybe, sort of understands.

He doesn't know yet who it was that struck the blow, doesn't even know, really, what the blow _was_, but he has always been terribly aware of the fact that Kharl exists in some place he can't reach, an alternate dimension effective just for hiding treasures, and what he's hiding from them is inevitably his heart—run through and bled out by tragedy he won't share.

Kharl's master is dead. Garfakcy's master is waiting even now.

Waiting. That's what it is, isn't it? It's not that Kharl doesn't want to go but that he's afraid to leave, afraid the moment he turns his back will be the moment everything comes home to him, and then he won't be there to meet it, will lose everything all over again and never, never get another chance.

He has to be here in this castle, always ready, certain that the next breath—or the next—will bring the past back to him, whole and well. Kharl cannot move forward. Will not move forward.

And then it opens up in Garfakcy's head, every thing falling into place.

The land and the king are one. He's known this, knew this even before Kharl, read it in the books about Dusis, seen it in Kainaldia. And yet somehow it never occurred to Garfakcy before, never settled into to the right notch in his mind:

Arinas is a barren kingdom.

Its ruler is equally barren.

Nothing lives here except by Kharl's provenance. But nothing dies here either. Arinas is a world without permission to _change_, without a future. The trees growing now, blue in the pre-dawn light, are the trees that grew then, new leaves perhaps but no taller than the day the world stopped turning for their master and these birds even make the same journey year after year without a single molt of their feathers, without aging a day, because he wills it all to be enduring or just the _same_. Arinas is a frozen world, to match his master's frozen heart, trapped, still beating, in the cage of that secret, lonesome past.

Kharl stands behind the rampart, every single breath a battle to remain unmoving in the face of the perpetual motions of life, the endless forward streaming of time. Behind him the entire soul of the wounded country strains for freedom, desperate for the right to be _different_ tomorrow, to _move_. Above them the sky seems to shiver with bird wings and a hundred thousand tiny eyes glinting in the light, straight on into the fading darkness with the half moon on their shoulders. On the bastion, Kharl keeps all the world waiting. Garfakcy is sure the castle clocks have ground to a halt.

Before he knows he has moved, Garfakcy finds himself beside his master, and he's never done it before but _be kind, he needs it_ so he reaches out a little hesitant and tangles his fingers in the sleeve of Kharl's cloak, just close enough to feel the hollow warmth of his master's wrist. Garfakcy keeps on watching the feathered sky, undemanding, and Kharl doesn't move to take his hand exactly but a sort of shiver seems to travel through him that brings him a half inch closer to reality and the both of them. On his other side, Sinistra or Roubal or whoever's body it is now levels a light hand on the small of their master's back, not intimate but utterly necessary, the thread tying them all down not to the stone ground but to the steady revolution of the planet, the slow advance of the moment.

When the banners of the bird flight begin at last to taper, and the distance edge of the sea glimmers gray and gold, Sinistra leans Roubal's red-head onto Kharl's shoulder and, smiling a stolen smile, says something like "I've heard Hyuray is nice this time of year."

"I've never been there," Garfakcy catches himself adding.

Kharl sighs, long and whispery. For the first time in a hundred springs, his eyes seem to really focus, with a soft jolt, and his grip on the castle wall relaxes into something almost regretful. He doesn't look at either of them, but Garfakcy feels seen anyway and when Kharl murmurs, "We used to go there every summer," never mind the plural, the past tense—it feels like a heavy weight easing off. He lets go of the alchemist's sleeve at last.

"We should visit," Garfakcy says, at the exact moment Sinistra points out, "A little change won't ruin everything."

The last chains of lapwings disappear over the distant horizon. Kharl almost smiles. "Maybe," he says. "Maybe."

They stand together for a long while, just breathing.

(And then Garfakcy bangs his forehead hard against the castle wall, because seriously? All this time it was about _migrating_? He'd honestly thought—_thought_—on their master's other side, Sinistra laughs out loud, rough and boyish and very much alive.)

* * *

**Theme 43: Dying**  
"_It's okay, Dad, really—I'll find you an easier game!"_


	43. I Guess It's Time to Play

**+ Fallacy, a 100themes Challenge +  
Sarehptar**

* * *

**Theme:** 43, Dying**  
Characters:** Kharl, Rath**  
Pairing:** Implied Rath/Cesia.**  
Warnings:** Crack. This is so, so much crack. **  
Need to Know Info:** This is (sort of) a direct sequel to Theme #33, "Should Have Seen It Coming," so you will probbabbbllyy need to read that one in order for this one to make even the slightest, tiniest bit of sense. This theme carries on the very, very strange AU from that theme and takes it even further, so I'm sorry if you end up very confused. Also, I didn't want to do anything remotely heavy or angsty for the theme "dying," so I produced something totally ridiculous written entirely in _dialogue_. I'm sorry if it's horrible. Also, some knowledge of popular video games might be helpful. XD**  
Title Provider:** Ai no Uta (Strawberry Flower)

___We'll fight, be silent, and follow you,  
but we won't ask you to love us._

* * *

"This is utterly ridiculous. You can't simply alter the accepted controls in the middle of the course and expect users to grasp—"

"Watch out! Elite incoming!"

"And that's another thing I can't abide by: the naming system in this contained virtual dimension is completely inconsistent. One would assume that an organized force going by the name of 'Spartans' would find worthier names for their enemies than 'Grunt' and—"

"Get the Banshee off the ground, _now_!"

"My point exactly. Why are _Spartans_ riding in a flying machine named after an _Irish_ spirit? ...Is it supposed to be able to throw me out that easily?"

"No. No it's not."

"Then for that matter, the contrived mechanics of these vehicles is truly atrocious. There is simply no way they would ever—"

"Armor lock! _Armor lock! _Agh!"

"Oh. I died."

"Again. You died _again_."

"Perhaps you should stop beating your head on the desk. There is a poorly-animated-likely-hostile organic tank approaching your side of the scre—"

"...Andddd now _I_ died again."

"Maybe if you hadn't taken over my control apparatus—"

"I was trying to help _you. _God, you spawned right over the core! We could have won!"

"Practice might be a necessity in this situation..."

"There aren't enough years left in your life to fit in all the practice you need—and you're _immortal_."

"That might be a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?"

"Which part? ...Never mind. It's over and done with. I'll find you an easier game to play."

"I'm still not quite clear on how I ended up taking part in these virtual slaughters in the first place... Did that god awful guidance counselor of yours set you up to this? Because I have it on good word that he is an abuser of illegal substances—"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Dad? Kaistern doesn't do drugs."

"...He works for Lykouleon."

"Good point. But that still doesn't make him a druggie; it just makes him a tool."

"_Was_ this his suggestion? It was, wasn't it? I don't know where he learned my weak flanks but I will not sit calmly by and continue to let him and his little party of overgrown lizards humiliate me in this sort of manner. Next time I see him I'll have his liver on a platter before he can blink."

"Trust me, you would not want that guy's liver. It's like the poster child for cirrhosis. And besides, Lykouleon would—huh?"

"The phone's ringing, Rath..."

"But who would call the house line? And why hasn't Garfakcy gotten it yet?"

"He's procuring himself a ticket to your pro—I mean, I gave him the day off!"

"Garfakcy hasn't taken a day off in like two centuries. I don't think you could _make_ him take a day off if you tied him to a concrete block and dropped him off a bridge. He'd just come back with a mop in his hands to clean up his own wet footprints."

"Are you going to get the phone, Rath?"

"Why should I?"

"You're closer."

"It's gonna be for you. My friends call my phone."

"It's going to be someone I don't want to talk to."

"...If you promise to never use that 'woe is me' sigh again, I guess I'll get it."

"My whole-hearted promise, Rath."

"Yeah _right_. ...Hello? Oh. It's you. Uh-huh. No. Go die."

"Who is it?"

"It's Headmaster Lykouleon. He says he's going to storm the castle if you don't stop writing slanderous letters about him to the Board of Education."

"Why am I always the first blamed? Does he think Nadil's incapable of writing or something?"

"My dad says you're an asshole and next time he's going to tell the Board how you kidnapped my nubile soul and kept me imprisoned for decades in a coffin hidden under your secret weapons stash."

"It was a _coffin_? Why do I always hear about these things decades too—"

"...Well he knows now. Have fun with that one. I'm hanging up."

"A _coffin_!"

"Calm down, Dad. What'd your mandatory group class say about revenge—"

"Yes, yes: an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. But I keep telling you, I really think it would be worth it. I can grow new eyes."

"How did they ever deem you safe for life among the general public?"

"I might have given them an assumed name and changed appearances several times since then."

"Are you sure they didn't just figure you'd drown in your own clutter before you could cause any harm to innocent bystanders?"

"I resent that. I've solved the clutter issue!"

"Nice. I'm going to tell Garfakcy you consider him the solution to all your personal failings."

"Please don't. When he gets to feeling self important he puts hazardous materials into your cookies and then I have to switch before they get to you and swallowing bits of glass without making faces is really quite difficult..."

"What?"

"Or worse, he'll get mad and then there'll be cyanide in the tea. I keep mistaking it for almond extract! ...Huh? Why are you pinching yourself?"

"Just checking whether I'm going to wake up from this crazy dream into a normal family or anything approaching reality any time soon."

"We are perfectly normal."

"Ah! Ha ha ha! Ow! Ow, hang on, I think I popped a lung on my ribs! Normal! Pffftt!"

"Why are you laughing?"

"Because—ha! —we are the furthest from _normal_ this world has probably ever seen. There's an alternate dimension at the back of our garage where you're storing a limo. We have a hyperspace limo. A _space limo_, Dad."

"I'm sure plenty of people have—"

"_No one_ else has a _space limo_."

"Owning a limousine doesn't make us—"

"There's an alternate dimension at the back of our garage but you can't figure out the controls for an Xbox 360. _Halo Reach_ isn't even hard. Thatz's _mom_ plays it for God's sake."

"Is... that what this was about? Being _normal_? Are you bothered by—"

"No, it's not that! It's just... Cesia is pretty normal."

"Cesia... That loud but otherwise completely uninteresting girl you're going to the prom with?"

"Hey—"

"Well, my mandatory group class definitely said that if someone loves you, they'll happily accept even the most outlandish of your quirks, so you shouldn't worry about being normal! In fact, you should certainly reveal more of your true self! I'm sure if this freakishly unmannered girl really cares for you, she won't mind at all that you're an ex-bloodthirsty demon king—ACK! Rath, I can't breathe! Choking hurts!"

"Dammit! Why do you always have to ruin everything for me? I was trying to be serious and honest for _once_ and you had to bring that up! No wonder you can't form meaningful relationships with anyone—you're so selfish! ...Screw this, I'm leaving. I'll be at Rune's; don't call me."

"But... Ah, about that 'easier' game?"

"Play _this_! It's right up your alley!"

"Rath, don't throw things at me—you know I can't catch! ...And don't slam the door either!"

- x - x - x -

"Dad, I'm home. And Garfakcy already chewed me out for the broken glass in the door so you don't have to. Anyway, about that... I'm not sorry but—"

"Ssh! You're distracting me!"

"What? What the heck? Are you actually playing—"

"Ssh!"

"Just pause it! Whoa, wait how far _are_ you? Have you been playing since I left?"

"This particular simulator is surprisingly addictive. The conceptual approach of its plot and gameplay makes considerably more sense than that bizarrely named _Halo_ nonsense, and—"

"Holy crap, I left _two_ days ago! And hey, I never even made it this far! How did you get three parts in just one game day? Did you cheat? I'm going to watch."

"Of course Rath, although if your untimely entrance and running commentary result in the death of one of my minions I will be most displeased."

"Stop smiling when you say 'minions,' it's creepy."

"I'm just glad you're home."

"Yeah, I—huh? You haven't lost a single Pikmin? That's not even possible!"

"Meaningful relationships and all that."

"...Wow, a guilt trip! Just what I always wanted!"

"Returning the favor. Apparently, that's a _normal_ thing to do."

"I get it, okay. I was—There's no way you just defeated that boss that fast. And where are the rest of your Pikmin even?"

"It's the simple principle of dividing to conquer. The minions attack without needing direction, so splitting the group into three based upon affinity allows me to position three individual, smaller, self-directed armies among the large enemies based upon the enemies' attack patterns, which limits the potential for accidental death due to exposing minions of the incorrect variety to attacks they cannot withstand. If I move between the groups rapidly, I can oversee three different conflicts simultaneously and direct them quickly enough when the time comes to retrieve our treasure."

"Go figure. You're _abnormally_ good at manipulating the brainless masses."

"I just think they're cute. I don't want them to die."

"Yeah... Me either. But still, I lost some when I played. Normal people make mistakes."

"Like bringing up things they shouldn't, and not managing to win even when they 'spawn right above the core'? Even though I might have said it poorly, I did mean what I said, Rath."

"About what?"

"About you not needing to be normal to be loved. No matter how absolutely strange you are, you're just fine."

"Thanks... I think? But it's a little bit different when it comes to not-my-sole-overly-attached paren—"

"Ah, one of them died! Died! Look at its sad little soul! ...I blame Cesia for this."

"Dad!"

"Besides, she's not normal either. She was talking to the dog."

"Oh. Oh, you're right."

"Now have you figured out who is going to be driving the space limo? Because I decided Zoma is much too abnormal for the job and so I've very intentionally given him that evening off."

"Daddd!"

* * *

**Theme 44: Two Roads**  
_"And how do I get to the place where you're from?"_


End file.
